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Rug Weaving /
Patchwork Centre
The project was launched in 1988
with support of the composting project, which was then on its
feet and viable. This project targeted drop out girls who had
had to go out on the garbage route as children and who had thus
been  deprived
of the chance to go to school. These mothers were recruited into
what we call our 'learning and earning' school - a model of how
to learn all the elements of school learning but in a recycling
project revolving around the transformation of clean rags into
marketable products. These rags are donated by the private
textile sector of Egypt. The project incorporates literacy,
personal and environmental hygiene and empowerment to deal with
culture-specific matters such as female circumcision, early
marriage, and others.
This projects runs with the
vision that a women in a development project further involves
the residents of Mokattam Garbage village. It receives annually
, on average, 100 girls and young women. A 306 month training
period introduces trainees to the art and skill of weaving rag
rugs on a hand loom and sewing patch work items. Building in the
existing skill of sorting garbage, this project creates an
alternative educational model in non-formal education for girls
and women who never had the chance to go tot school. It views
the waste and sorting context of recycling as a potential for an
income generating numeracy, while incorporating elements of
personal and environmental hygiene. Business skills are
developed and computer literacy is added.
Skill acquisition covers areas of color identification,
classification, space relationships, numeracy, literacy, home
economics, personal and environmental hygiene, and a host of
other learning built on existing skills within the community's
recycling ethos. The approach adopted in holistic and includes
recreation and celebration, through field trips and monthly
celebrations. These feature health and sociodramas, primary
health care training in nutrition, mother and child health,
family planning, traditional negative practices, prevention
measures against accidents, etc. as well as discussion revolving
around major production and project management concerns.
Literacy classes are offered on the premises of APE and are
scheduled to suit the staggered training schedule of trainees.
Based on Freirean methods of literacy instruction, the curriculum
is designed around slightly different principles of
conscientization based upon sources of hope rather than root
causes of oppression.
Graduation parties inaugurate the productive families' phase of
the project where trainees go on to producing from their homes.
They continue to secure their rags and work orders from A.P.E,
which markets the products both locally and internationally. A
1994 census of participants in this project indicated the a
total of 300 girls and women had graduated from the center of
whom a full 200 continue to be cottage industry workers. Of
these 64% practice family planning and 56% are opposed to female
circumcision.
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