Street photography again and again “Life as we live it today is filled with barriers that separate us,” Mimo Khair says, “but when I'm in the street with my camaera, I can connect to another person, and that for me is when the magic happens.” From the streets of Shanghai to the remote villages of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Lebanese photographer has travelled the world capturing moments of emotion on the road, illustrating the connectedness of the human race through her poignant images. Over the course of her career, Khair was particularly moved by an interaction with a young Syrian girl living in a refugee camp in Lebanon. She photographed the green-eyed girl after noticing the word “love” written out on her hand in English and Arabic. “When I asked further about the girl, I found out she had lost both of her parents, and actually her whole family only a few days ago,” Khair explains. “So it struck me how she could stand there, her eyes shining, and think of love.” It all started in 1996, while she was living in New York City. She took a few photography classes and decided to bring along her Pentax and rolls of film on a trip to Egypt. There, Khair fell in love with the rhythm and busyness of the roads. “It was amazing just to see people in the street, strange faces, old and new architecture,” she says, “and naturally street photography was what I was getting into.” The Egypt Heart Association held a celebration hosted by Minister of Health Adel Adawi and Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali where the rights of Egyptians to quality health service were stressed and the association's efforts to support medical research celebrated. Present were actresses Laila Taher, Ragaa Al-Geddawi, Poussy and journalist Ahmed Al-Mislemani. Students of the Egypt British International School — Farida Tamer, Ritta Bassem and Adam Hatem — won the art competition run by the National Solid Waste Management Programme (NSWMP) Egyptian/German project. The project was organised by the Ministry of the Environment and aims to contribute to the sustainable protection of the climate and environment. Children between the ages of nine and 11 joined in the art competition, exploring the benefits of a cleaner Cairo. Over 60 students participated, and they were presented at the NSWMP conference in the presence of Minister of Environment Khaled Fahmi, Governer of Kafr Al Sheikh Mohamed Agwa and Minister of Urban Development Layla Eskandar. From the farm all the way to the table, about half the food produced worldwide is wasted and in Egypt most food loss occurs during production. Nesmahar Sayed attended the 27th Cairo Climate Talks, at which Taste the Waste, a German documentary, was screened followed by a panel discussion comparing food waste and loss dynamics in Egypt and other countries. The panelists were Ezzat Naiem, executive director at Spirit of Youth Association, Manshiyet Nasr; Max Wakefield, Foodcycle Bristol Alumni; and Aurelia Weintz, premaculture designer at Nawaya Egypt and a member of Slow Food Egypt. The event was concluded by a gourmet buffet made of food that would normally have been discarded. Through the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture, India is offering 27 scholarships for different courses of study in India to promote cooperation between India and Egypt in the field of education and culture. The scholarships are offered under two categories. The first category includes 13 scholarships (three for undergraduates and ten for doctoral studies), granted annually to deserving Egyptian students for pursuing higher education in institutes of excellence in India under the Indo-Egyptian Cultural Exchange Programme. The Indian Embassy coordinates with Egypt's Ministry of Higher Education to process applications for these scholarships. Suitable candidates nominated by the ministry are then selected by the Indian Embassy after their English proficiency is examined. Interested candidates for 2015-2016 can apply to the Missions Department of the Ministry of Higher Education. The second category includes 14 scholarships offered under the Africa Scheme, which covers undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral courses of study. Candidates can apply directly to the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC). Application forms, as well as detailed guidelines are available online (www.iccrindia.net/Dear_Applicant1.pdf; www.indembcairo.com). The deadline for receiving the applications is 15 January 2015. Abdel-Rahman Bahieldin, a junior student at the American University in Cairo (AUC) pursuing a double major in music performance and engineering, recently won first place in the prestigious Chopin Piano Competition in Egypt at the Cairo Conservatory, for the above-18 age group. “Even though music is not a product of science, the two fields have direct relations,” he said. As part of his award, Bahieldin will travel to Poland in the spring to take master's classes for one week at the Academy of Music in Krakow. “I connect to engineering in such a specific way, and I use the same approaches to a problem in music as I do for an engineering problem,” Bahieldin said. He plans to design musical instruments too. “The piano is a very complex mechanical system, and because I understand the physics, the structure of a piano, I believe it would be wise for me to use my divergent skills to become a designer,” he said. “This would combine all of my skills into one job. It's like double majoring in work.” The Cairo Opera House Main Hall presented a special evening celebrating the Prophet Mohamed's Mawlid (birthday) together with Coptic Christmas. Mixing Sufi chanting with Coptic hymns, the event featured singer Ali Al-Haggar, together with Maher Fayez, singing and playing the oud, with his choir and the German-Egyptian band Cairo Steps, as well as Cairo Opera Chairwoman Ines Abdel-Dayem playing the flute.
