YOUNG Egyptians like to do voluntary work, especially in areas deprived of State services. Some of these youngsters have been working in shantytowns like Abu Qarn in Old Cairo, trying to make life better for their residents, relying on the Chinese proverb about teaching people to fish rather than just giving them a fish to eat. Ayman Abdel-Wahab, the head of Civil Community Studies at the Al- Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, says that charities need to boost people's practical skills, although Egyptian culture doesn't encourage developmental action, despite the fact that the heavenly religions stress the need to develop mankind. Mo'taz Eliwa, a volunteer, says that donations of money, food and clothing are very important in emergency cases, for example the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. “But such donations are not a permanent solution to problems like unemployment, merely a tranquilliser,” he told the independent newspaper Al-Masry Al- Youm. Mo'taz explained that he'd worked in education, alongside an NGO involved in the same field. “I am convinced that, if people get a good education, they will be able to solve their problems, making a better life for themselves and their children,” he added. Hisham el-Rubbi, the head of the Egyptian Centre for Volunteering, says that the Centre conducted a study of 10,000 young people and 50 NGOs 11 years ago. “We discovered that most young people thought that volunteering meant donating money,” el-Rubbi notes. “It was also seen to be mainly something for girls, who, according to one interviewee, would be better off staying at home.” Most of those questioned thought volunteering meant the money given by rich people to the poor, which was far from real development. In Abu Qarn, a group of young people working for the Cairo-based ‘For My Country' association started a development project five years ago. One of them, Mohamed Hisham, says they divided the area into three sections, then started collecting data about the number of families, unemployed people and families without breadwinners there. “We faced several problems, with many citizens wrongly suspecting that we were working for the Government and planning to kick them out of their homes. But little by little we gained their trust,” Hisham notes, adding the fact that they give foodstuffs to poor families there, one day every month, has also helped. The association's members, who are students at the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, also hold fairs in deprived areas, at which they sell readymade clothes to deprived citizens for nominal prices. In the current phase in Abu Qarn, that started a year ago, the association is renovating a school and establishing workshops to train unemployed youngsters in handicrafts, free of charge.
