Amany Abdel-Moneim finds an easy way to make children environmentally aware Classical music and the environment are not obvious bedmates. Yet Nazih Girgis, the founder and chairman of the US- Mid East Music and Fine Arts Council, has managed to link them in the even less likely context of child education. His Cultural Educational Briefcase for Arab Children, a bilingual series of books and CDs published and sold together, gives children the opportunity to learn about both. Well received at the 2004 Frankfurt Book Fair, the Briefcase has already spread across the country. "Music is communication," Girgis says. "It's education -- an uplifting medium that engages both the mind and the heart across cultures. Music inspires mutual understanding and cultural sensitivity as well as commercial ties -- the true maestro of international friendship. Our aim," he goes on, "is to enter the world of children through music. Once we have grabbed their attention, we can deliver our message about environmental issues." Girgis had already worked to encourage environmentally friendly behaviour among children: he wrote the texts of many books about music and the environment, most of which are inspired by famous pieces; he also links his own musical activities with the national environmental campaign. In Carnival of the Animals, one of the Briefcase 's volumes, he stresses the importance of cleaning up by showing the animals collecting garbage. Other books demonstrate the danger of noise, chemicals, air and water pollution -- always in a simple and humorous way. The Carnival of the Animals he wrote to accompany a 14- movement piece for piano, xylophone and orchestra, for example, tells the story of a visit to the zoo, where, when they contrive to stay on after the official visiting hours, child main characters are surprised to see the animals out of their cages cleaning up. The children decide to help the animals; and, in his regal capacity, the lion acts as headman. He divides the work among the animals and birds according to ability rather than size or speed, and they take on their tasks with enthusiasm. Thus Girgis, with the help of illustrations by Salma Kamal, introduces concepts like recycling, disinfection and environmental responsibility. When their work is done the animals celebrate, singing the glory of the creator and the beauty of their country. At the end of the book a glossary helps children keep track of such terms as "solid garbage". Designed by Violette Osiris, the book received two awards in the Suzanne Mubarak Competition for Children's Literature in 2001; 6,700 copies of it were distributed to schools. Carnival of the Animals was produced as a ballet as well; and, sponsored by Shell Egypt, premiered at the Cairo International Conference Centre in 1999. As a play thousands of children watched it in the course of the Friends of the Environment Festival in Egypt and Syria in 2000 -- resounding success. The Briefcase also contains Queen Waters, a kind of prose poem written by Girgis about the earth's most basic resources and tries to raise awareness of the importance of saving them. Accompanied by Dalia Kamal's colourful illustrations, the book is based on Handel's Water Music ; as a ballet it was performed under the auspices of Minister of Water Resources Mahmoud Abu Zeid at the Sharm El-Sheikh International Conference on Shared Water Resources in 2000 and in Johannesburg at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. As Abu Zeid says in his introduction, the book is a message from the heart -- about the necessity of saving water for future generations. With annotated illustrations on the back cover of each volume, children can learn to identify the instruments of the orchestra. Peter and the Wolf, perhaps one of the most important works ever written for children, is another Briefcase masterpiece. Prokofiev's music of 1936 is here accompanied by a narration of the main events. "The book has many values," Girgis explains. "It teaches children determination and decision-making, informs them about love of nature and kindness to animals. Of course, it also conveys a message about having and believing in a meaningful activity." Only a thin line separates self-awareness from awareness of the surroundings, Girgis says. "Music is an essential element of life," he says about the entire Briefcase. "It is only natural that when children are exposed to it, their talent should begin to sparkle." Taking the saying that bad habits are the worst polluters as his starting point, Girgis also presents Stop and Learn from the Elephant Hakim (the last word in the title means "the wise one"). Illustrated by Amr Gamal and awarded the Suzanne Mubarak prize in 2004, this is the intriguing account of an elephant who has taken it upon himself to inform children about safety issues and the importance of safety regulations, telling them stories about good and bad families. The Briefcase also contains a poster in which the annotated illustrations of the instruments of the symphonic orchestra are blown up. There is also a colouring book with plenty of informative text, in Arabic, English and German about camels as part of the environment in the Arab world.
