photo: Bassam El-Zoghby Art for peace Last Friday, Dokky dwellers were impressed to see the wall of the Ministry of Agriculture had been turned into a beautiful mural entitled "The Peace Mural", 18 square metres in size. Artist Osama Abdel-Moneim, the media organiser of the Plastic Artists Coalition, told Reham El-Adawi that painting the wall was accomplished by members of the coalition in collaboration with some volunteers and sponsored by the international Dutch organisation MasterPeace. The organisation named Cairo peace capital for 2014 and as a result a series of artistic activities were organised, starting with the Arts Festival, and will be ongoing until the same date in 2014. The festival featured musical performances by Egyptian artists and Japanese musicians from the Japan Foundation in Cairo as well as poetry recitals. According to Abdel-Moneim, the mural was made by eight artists during two workshops in two days. They started painting from 11am until 5pm on Friday. The mural depicts Egyptian motifs including the Pyramids, the Cairo Tower, kites, Egyptian houses and the peace logo using peaceful colours such as bleu ciel, grass green and terracotta. photo: Ayman Barayez The Mexican Ambassador to Egypt Maria Carmen Oñate Muñoz gave a reception at the Mexican Embassy in Maadi marking the 201st anniversary of the Independence of his country. The celebration included Mariachi, the native music of Mexico, performed by an Egyptian troupe. Present were diplomats, intellectuals and political figures including the founder of Al-Karama Party, presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, the Assistant Foreign Minister for American Affairs in Egypt Al-Husseini Abdel-Wahab and Al-Ahram senior writer Mahmoud Murad and his daughter Sarah. The secretary-general of the Egyptian Fund for Technical Cooperation with Africa, Ambassador Fatma Galal and the International Cultural Relations Minister Plenipotentiary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mohamed Kazem signed a cooperation agreement with the German University in Cairo (GUC) to provide GUC scholarships to 15 students from countries on the banks of the Nile who must meet academic requirements like other students, and 15 places for students with "a special background" that exempts them. According to the Founder and Chairman of the Board of the GUC Ashraf Mansour, the university will not only help those students to gain an excellent education, it will also thus help in shaping Africa's future leaders. The first round of the Universities' Film Festival for Youth and Children concluded its activities this week at the Cairo Opera House. The festival was organised by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) with support from UNICEF and the Swedish International Development Cooperation (SIDA). Some 350 media students presented movies expressing their goals for the future of the young in Egypt with participation from 10 Egyptian universities such as Cairo, Assiut, Ain Shams and Helwan. UNICEF representative in Egypt Philippe Duamelle, Minister of Health and Population Amr Helmi, Italian Ambassador to Egypt Claudio Pacifico, Swedish Ambassador to Egypt Malin Karre, Secretary-General of the NCCM Lamiaa Mohsen, goodwill ambassadors Khaled Abul-Naga and Menna Shalabi all attended. Last week at the Cairo Opera House, Mass Communication students from the American University in Cairo (AUC) were recognised for winning at the Universities' Film Festival. Two groups of AUC students, led by Mohamed Bary and Runa Alarian, received awards for the projects they developed in the Integrated Marketing Communication Capstone course in Journalism and Mass Communication, who had entered the competition with their own public announcement projects focussed on mass communication related to the January Revolution and the future of Egypt. Mona Helal also received an award for a project she developed independently. "I felt that the students were exceptionally engaged with the course material because it was so closely related to the events in the country and to their personal beliefs," said Naila Hamdi, professor of one mass communication course. Sherine Fahmi, professor of the capstone course, expressed similar sentiments about the success of her students. "The film was beautifully produced and the idea was highly creative, they did everything from A to Z by themselves," she said. "This group was amazing and always on top of things." The Bary team, which won second place in the public service announcement category, created the website www.fakarbnafsak.com (Think for Yourself) which lists all self-nominating candidates for the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.
