CAIRO - With his dark complexion and a look of grim determination reflecting the poverty, poor education and lack of healthcare he has suffered from since childhood, the head of the zabaleen (garbage collectors), Ezzat Na'em, says that his sufferings have empowered him to be the voice of this community and defend their rights. His sufferings are not unusual in a society whose most people despise the garbage collectors. Many years ago, the zabaleen lived in a poor district on the River Nile in Upper Egypt, before the Government told them to move on. They headed to Greater Cairo, where they moved another six times, before settling in their current location – Manshiyet Nasser, near Moqattam in eastern Cairo. "It's not a trash, it's cash," says Na'em, the head of the zabaleen Independent Syndicate, proudly noting that many families in the zabaleen community earn their living from collecting and recycling garbage. Each family is rather like a beehive, with each member – male and female, old and young – having a specific task to do. In Manshiyet Nasser, there are about 750 workshops that produce glass, paper and cloth. Egypt produces about 14,000 tonnes of rubbish on a daily basis, 8,000 tonnes of which the garbage collectors remove. Each tonne creates seven direct and five indirect jobs. Na'em is now trying to eradicate the poverty and illiteracy that are widespread among the zabaleen, in co-ordination with the Spirit of Youth, an association established in 2004 to provide the children of the zabaleen with a creative education that will help them in their daily work. Na'em, whose father worked in garbage collecting, said that, when he was a boy, he completed his education, going to school regularly while helping his father collect and recycle the trash at night. "I owe my mother a lot, God bless her; she suffered a lot of humiliation and other ill-treatment at the hands of my father, because she wanted me to complete my education," he recalls. “It is because of this education that I am now the voice of my community; it has also helped me to expand my own business. "Most of the children help their families, but they aren't educated. However, with the help of the Spirit of Youth and international companies that are taking social responsibility seriously, many of them are now learning how to read, write and do maths," Na'em stresses. NGOs and multinational companies with an interest in recycling are to be thanked for developing the zabaleen community. “Education is welcomed by our children and young people, because 'education means money',” he adds. In a unique project, zabaleen children are exploiting their skills by working for a big multinational cosmetics company. Their task is to stop competitors cheating by refill the company's empty, used bottles, damaging the company and giving it a bad reputation. This project allows youths and children to make more money; what they do is to find the multinational company's used bottles in the trash, then return them to the company, to stop the fraud. The Government still pays little attention to the garbage collectors; if it did, perhaps all the mountains of trash would finally disappear.
