Last week Doum Cultural Foundation celebrated its first publication. Entitled “When did the Egyptians inhabit Egypt,” it is the first in the foundation's Bebassata series (simply) written by young writers and tackling ideas that promote critical thinking. Located in a building built and owned by renowned architect Ramsis Wissa Wassef, the foundation is in the heart of the Agouza district in Giza. Though still less than one year old, it has already taken big steps towards achieving its goals. Named after the fruit of the doum palm tree, which is useful for food and other uses and is found in ancient Egyptian tombs, the foundation aims to promote cultural development for all. “Doum is a non-profit foundation whose main aim is to support critical thinking through creating simple cultural materials that can reach the biggest number of Egyptians in different places in an attempt to break away from the cultural centralisation of the country in Cairo and Alexandria,” explained Khaled Al-Khamisi, a writer and a founding member of Doum. The foundation works in five main areas — publishing, performance, music, cinema, and the visual arts. It also provides Caricature workshops by renowned figures such as Mohamed Effat; Wire sculpture by icon Galal Gomaa and Cloth paintings by famous artist Ibrahim Al-Beridi. The idea came to Al-Khamisi after the 25 January Revolution. “Like many Egyptians, we felt that we needed to do something for our country. We needed to support ourselves and others and to manage public affairs in a better way. We thought that one way in which we could do this would be to focus on supporting the infrastructure of thought and knowledge because this is the foundation of any political and social entity,” Al-Khamisi told Al-Ahram Weekly. Aside from hosting independent art performances and workshops, the foundation also holds periodical gatherings where young artists from other governorates can meet with older generations of artists and exchange experiences. Art and literary figures are also invited to talk about their achievements, and there are reading sessions to re-introduce key novelists and thinkers. Raising questions is another aim of the Doum Foundation. Through its non-fiction publications, it commissions young writers to write on topics that raise questions and do not seek to give ready-made answers. These publications are written and designed in a simple attractive manner and are short and to the point, aiming to attract young readers from all walks of life. Part of the foundation's long-term strategy is to organise cultural festivals, seeing these as important cultural events since they allow direct contact between performers and audiences. Egypt has few cultural festivals, Al-Khamisi said, and those it did have were mostly for the elite. Story-telling is another part of the foundation's agenda, interesting because it is one of the oldest art forms and yet has flourished over the past ten years through the interest of the social revolutionary movements started in 2000. Many story-telling groups have been formed to tell their stories about oppression, daily rituals, dance and music, among other things, notes Al-Khamisi. In March, the foundation organised Egypt's first Story-Telling Festival, a three-day event held in Qena in Upper Egypt, a place famous for its story-telling arts. As part of the festival, the city hosted 25 troupes from Siwa, Port Said, Suez, and other parts of Upper Egypt including Aswan. “We worked for one month ahead of the Festival with local story-tellers from Qena who compiled, recited and performed their stories,” Al-Khamisi said. The festival was a hit. According to Gomaa Ahmed, founding member of the Teletwar Troupe from Minya, “the participating troupes provided different story-telling techniques which enriched the experience. We attended all the performances,” he said. “It was a nice touch that Said Al-Daw, the great Sira story-teller, handed out the certificates of merit to those who participated,” Ahmed added. Al-Daw is a recognised master in telling the Epic of Abu Zeid Al-Helaly, composed of some four million lines of text. However, Ahmed said that the festival that shall be annually held in Qena, should be more than three days. The visual arts are another focus of the foundation. Believing that these rarely address the underprivileged, Al-Khamisi decided to break away from the mainstream in this regard. “We started with wire sculptures as the raw materials are very cheap, and moved on to cloth paintings, another recycled art form that is not far from the techniques of most Egyptian villagers.” Peasants usually recycle their worn-out clothes to become cleaning cloths at the end of the cycle. And they use rags to create hand-made tapestries that can be very beautiful. “The foundation helped to show how rags can be recycled into handmade pictures costing just the price of a needle and some old rags,” he said. “I made a flower that is now hanging in my bedroom,” explained 13-year-old Nora Ali, one of the beneficiaries of the patchwork art workshop that Doum had provided in collaboration with Tawasol, an NGO working in Stabl Antar, an underprivileged district of Cairo. Tawasol provides schooling for 130 children too old to register in the public schools. It gives such children, often drop-outs, the chance to re-enroll in a school that is certified by the ministry of education and thus gives them a second chance at education. The NGO also teaches simple handicrafts and provides minimum wages for parents to ensure that the children are not forced to drop out of school again, explained Heba Ahmed from Tawasol. The collaboration with Doum handicraft workshop was a new venture for the NGO, showing how the crafts methods used can turn worn-out cloth into beautiful handmade pictures that can be sold to generate an income. Doum is self-funded, and it uses its own gallery to sell the artworks. Operating with a small, self-sustaining budget, the foundation's work is inspirational. At the end of this month, Doum Foundation aims to hold a workshop in the village of Shubra Belouli in the Delta. “The idea is to teach the children story-telling, to document their stories, and help them create their own performances,” Al-Khamisi concluded.
