In the shanty town of Istabl Antar, Amira El-Naqeeb has multi-colour dreams A documentary screening. The difference is, this time, the scenes carry a sequence of wishes. A woman in her 40s named Umm Shaimaa speaks of her greatest dream: "I want my daughter to be well, so I can sleep at night like a normal person." Another, in her 50s, envisions running water in the house, not having to go to the mosque every time she needs the bathroom. Walid Zakariya, a man in his 20s, speaks of having had only two options to pay his debts and so secure his married life: "To sell my kidney, or to sell drugs." He chose the former, making LE10,000. "All I dream of is a job." The documentary depicts the lives of Istabl Antar, a 10-minutes' drive from the posh suburb of Maadi, where dreams were shockingly modest. As the light came back on, board members of the Development of Istabl Antar Project (DIAP), together with crew members from the ZAD Communication and Production House, which made this film for free, began to discuss the finishing touches of the film -- technique -- but the conversation inevitably reverted back to subject matter, with the dreams of Istabl Antar poignantly reasserting themselves. Sabria Abdullah, a resident of Zahraa Misr Al-Qadima who has done voluntary community work for 14 years, found time for a brief history of the shanty town: "Twenty years ago, this area was just a mountain, the land owned by the Maadi Company for Building and Construction. Driven by poverty, working people flocking to Cairo started building squatter settlements on whatever space was free." Stretching from Basateen to Dar Al-Salam, the elevation of Zahraa has seen many -- failed -- attempts on the part of the company to evacuate the area and dismantle the shanty town. Most of the inhabitants are immigrants from the provinces looking for work or else low paid labourers -- collecting and sorting rubbish, for example. "We started going to Istabl Antar in 1998, we didn't know where to start, because of the sub-human conditions in which people live," says Ghada Gabr, a board member of the Sohbit Kheir NGO and one of the main volunteers of DIAP. According to Gabr, the entire area -- including Zahraa Misr Al-Qadima, Batn Al-Baqara, Haggarah and Ezbet Khairallah -- is in urgent need of development; Istabl Antar was selected because it is a showcase for shanty-town troubles throughout Cairo. "An added incentive was that there is a disused mosque that we could convert into workshops," Gabr adds. "This is phase one of the development project." Yasmeen Abu Youssef, the volunteer representing the Fathet Kheir NGO, says one of the goals of the project is to help inhabitants develop their skills -- something she started contributing to in 1999, undertaking developments in the Muqattam Hills to help people who suffered from the 1992 earthquake. Last year, during Ramadan, the NGO collected LE200,000 with which it managed to provide some 15,000 people with food for the duration of the month. There was no long-term effect, however: after Ramadan, the people started going hungry again. With Istabl Antar the idea was built on: "The idea is to develop the area, we don't want to give them donations. The people have to be part of solving their own problem." The project involves training and rehabilitating people, especially the young, then providing them with job opportunities. Four workshops will be established to develop carpentry, home accessories manufacture (using seashells), glass making and recycling. "We want to start an aggressive campaign and raise Egyptian funds," Abu Youssef explains. "We don't want to go to USAID or UNICEF -- this is an Egyptian problem and an Egyptian cause. We're going to go to officials and businessmen. We want to approach the government about running water and sewerage, for example, because that will save us a whole load of legal permits and facilitate the work." But volunteers also include multinational employees like Tarek Kamel, a sales manager, who offered the board members a presentation outlining goals and expectations. He was very eager to speak about the reason he joined: "It was the first time for me to volunteer in any charity work, I knew there was poverty in Egypt but I didn't know how much. I was amazed to find a saqqa (a water vendor) in a place 10 minutes away from Maadi in 2006. I felt that I had a duty to my country. Not only going to a match and cheering -- there is more to be done." Kamel, the force behind the documentary film, stressed hard work and commitment: "We will approach all the authorities; we need all the help we can get. The documentary will make Istabl Antar known to people who don't know about it." Sitting on the floor to listen was Youssef Hesham, the young director and editor of the documentary: "The idea behind The Dream of Istabl Antar came to me right after I visited for the first time. I saw people jam-packed in a public bus, but besides the usual pity for them I realised they at least have food on the table and buy clothes from time to time -- they can afford to dream. The Istabl Antar people were below the poverty line." With dim light, narrow spaces and frequent lack of a power outlet, he adds, shooting conditions were far from ideal: "I went three times before shooting. We were a crew of five, people looked at us as if we were aliens from outer space. The people of Istabl Antar don't dream simply because their dreams are the most basic human rights." The well-known actor Amr Waked, also a director and member of ZAD, is proud to have been part of the project: "We do a lot of development projects but this particular story moved me personally. When Yasmeen Abu Youssef approached me," he recalls, "I thought I could help contribute a tool that tells the truth about Istabl Antar; media is more powerful than nuclear weapons." Already, as he said this, board members were on their way to meeting with the residents who provided the dreams. And so was I. We went down metal steps to extremely narrow alleyways with cracked walls and not enough space for two people standing. Handmade houses consisted of brick pieces and wood sheets for roofs. Umm Shaimaa sat quietly with her daughter Rania, 13, an epileptic, in front of the house. A divorcee with four girls who receives a monthly alimony of LE100, Umm Shaimaa's case is typical: "I cannot even work because Rania stays up all night, and I stay up with her, scared that she might hurt herself." Safaa, 30, a widow who works in the Cancer Institute as a cleaner, lives with her three children in the semblance of a room reached through a sort of pit barely covered on the outside, with an unbearable odour -- the informal bathroom for everyone in the vicinity, as it turns out. These women say little, maybe because what they have to complain of is so obvious. But on the other side of the mountain, reached by walking through rubbish heaps where children play, Samia Abdel-Aziz has a story to share: "I'm an old woman with a heart condition, and now my chest really aches, because of the smoke from burning the rubbish, and the unbearable smell that makes you cough your brains out. It is the only way to pass to the other side of the mountain." Nodding enthusiastically, Gabr turned to me to say, "We are not asking that those people should live in villas or eat meat every day. We just want them to feel human."
