photos: Ghada Abd El-Kader Chairman of the General Organisation for Cultural Palaces (GOCP) Ahmed Nawar held a special ceremony to celebrate the completion of the first volume of the Egyptian Folklore Atlas, entitled Bread in the Egyptian Popular Tradition, containing 322 folklore maps and divided into five parts. My colleague Ghada Abd El-Kader attended the celebration, held at Cairo Opera House Small Hall. The atlas is the brainchild of sociologist Mohamed El-Goharia and his colleagues in the National Centre for social and Penal Researches; it dates back to the 1980s and aims at preserving the language and culture of the main ethnic minorities. More than 10 years of research, including workshops to collect data, make up the substance of the project, later adopted by GOP. Among the attendees were Qalyoubia Governor Adli Hussein, designer of the atlas Khaled Sorour and singer Samir El-Eskandrani Together with the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University, the Nahdet Al-Mahrousa NGO launched the first Career Development Office with the aim of instituting a sustainable mechanism for enabling students to acquire the skill needed to compete in the job market. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the dean of the faculty Samir Shahine and NGO Chairman Ehab Abdou. Among the attendees were President of Cairo University Ali Abdel-Rahman, former minister of higher education and scientific research Amr Salama and members of the Egyptian Education and Employment Alliance Advisory Board. At the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture, journalist Kamel Zoheiri -- Al-Gumhouriya columnist and New Arab Press World veteran -- gave a lecture entitled "What India means to me". Zoheiri graduated from Cairo University in 1947 and obtained his postgraduate diploma in Arabic literature from the Sorbonne in 1950. Among the attendees were Indian Ambassador A Gopinathan and director of MACIC Bashir Ahmed. Cairo Opera House Director Abdel-Moneim Kamel and director- general of museums and galleries at the Opera House Fayeza Abdel-Moneim cut the ribbon of the exhibition of the Child Workshop for 2006. Honorary guests included Maged Abdel-Razek. The exhibition contained paintings, pottery, sculptures and animation. Syrian actress Sulaf Fawakherji has been nominated to play the leading role in an Egyptian television series about the life of Fatima Al-Youssef, one of the most important Arab women of the 20th century. Fawakherji had explained that she was recommended for the role of Rose El-Youssef by the great Egyptian writer Luis Gris, who is supervising the making of the series. Director Khairi Beshara is nominated for the film, though no actors have yet been cast. Fawakherji considers this series a significant step in her short career and a strong comeback after her role opposite the late Ahmed Zaki in the movie Halim. The 22nd Alexandria International Film Festival (5-10 September) will feature films from France, Italy, Bosnia, Serbia, Al-Jabal Al-Aswad, Greece and Spain, in addition to four Arab films, namely: Nazra (Look), written and directed by the Moroccan filmmaker Noureddin L'Khamri; Leabet Al-Hobb (Love Game) by Egyptian director Mohamed Ali ; Taht Al-Saqf, written and directed by Syrian filmmaker Nidal Al-Debs ; Yom Akhar by Lebanese director Jumana Haji and her husband Khalil Jreij. According to Samir Shehata, the festival's media manager, the event will include "first trials" of the UAE and the Sultanate of Oman in the field of cinema. He added that Tarab Fashion is the first long narrative movie from the UAE to be filmed completely in the Emirates. * Speaking at a UNICEF-sponsored gathering in Beirut, Lebanese Minister of Education Khaled Kabbani urged donors to help the Lebanese government undertake the repairs necessary for school children to return to class. He said preliminary assessments of war damage showed that up to 50 schools in southern Lebanon have been completely destroyed, while up to 300 others suffered serious damage. The minister said preliminary estimates put the losses sustained by the education sector at $70 million, including damage to infrastructure, equipment and supplies. He confirmed that government schools would resume classes on 9 October, some three weeks later than originally scheduled. UNICEF representative Roberto Laurenti underlined the scale of the challenge facing the educational authorities. The cost of providing school bags to 350,000 children, and of equipment and supplies to 1,500 schools will be contained in a revised appeal to be launched by UNICEF together with UN agencies. UNICEF will also support the rehabilitation of more than 150 schools in Beirut and other areas that were used as emergency shelters for families displaced by the war.
