AWR Quarterly Newsletter - January 2021

Language: 
English
Sent On: 
Sun, 2021-01-10
Year: 
2021
Newsletter Number: 
1

Dear Arab-West Report Newsletter readers,

 

With wishes for a blessed 2021. We wish our Orthodox readers have had a blessed Christmas. It
was strange of course with no Christmas service because of the covid-19 pandemic. I have just
returned to Egypt. The government of Egypt has instructed all schools and learning centers to be
closed. This has, naturally, affected our CAWU-Learning Center for refugee students as well.

You have seen several newsletters last year about the tremendous blessings we have received in
operating this learning center. Now we need to switch to online teaching. That is not easy for
students who mostly have no computer and no or poor access to internet. The preventive
measures against the pandemic are having a substantially greater negative impact on refugee
community or lower income people than those in higher income categories.

In 2020 we did not produce an overview for the 3rd quarter. This is why you now receive an
overview of the newsletters that were sent out in the 2nd half of 2020. The pandemic greatly
affected our student internship program but also with students we have gone online. On October
4 we wrote that Robert Sharples, a PhD researcher and part time lecturer at the University of
Portsmouth (UK), is supervising students to produce reports about media coverages of issues of
contemporary importance in Egypt. This project is going ahead and this will result in a number
of reports for Arab-West Report.

Yesterday a well-known Egyptian medical doctor informed us that there is no more space in
Egyptian hospitals to admit new cases with covid-19. With all of you we wish and pray that the
pandemic and thus the draconic measures to prevent the spread of covid-19 will soon come to an
end.

 

 

January 10, 2021

 

Cornelis Hulsman,

 

Editor-in-Chief Arab-West Report  


English Newsletters

 

1) Eid al-Adha during the pandemic
July 30, 2020 ​

Arab-West Report congratulates its Muslim readers for the Eid al-Adha, the feast that commemorates the willingness of Abraham to follow God's command to sacrifice his son. Muslims congratulate each other with beautiful wishes such as “May God almighty accept all your sacrifices and rewards you with a life that is full of cheers and successes.
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

2) Disaster in Beirut: blame the other

August 12, 2020

The August 4 explosion of 2700 ton of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut has resulted in over 160 deaths, thousands of wounded, 300.000 people became homeless and hundreds of thousands facing damages to their property at a time that Lebanon’s economy is in shambles. Many NGOs such as the Dutch Kerk in Actie and the Danish Danmission started a campaign to help rebuild Beirut.
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

3) Webinar Inclusive Citizenship September 26: sign-up now!
September 14, 2020

On September 26 we go to the next stage: an entire day dedicated to inclusive citizenship in Egypt, a theme proposed by Anglican Archbishop Mouneer [Munīr].
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

 

4) Webinar Inclusive Citizenship September 26 – Join us!!
September 24, 2020

“Inclusive Citizenship is a dream of many people in our world today. The definition of inclusive citizenship, as I understand it, is the granting of full rights of citizenship to all people regardless of their religion, ethnicity, gender, color, socio-economic status etc. Our world is still far from achieving this dream, and religious leaders have an important role to play in making inclusive citizenship a reality, rather than a dream” - Archbishop Mouneer [Munīr].
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

5) Unique opportunity for research internships
October 4, 2020

A chance to produce a report about a media coverage of an issue of contemporary importance in Egypt under the supervision of Robert Sharples, a PhD researcher and part time lecturer at the University of Portsmouth (UK).
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

6) The slain French teacher and Volkhard Windfuhr; fighter against extremism and intolerance
October 21, 2020

Friday October 16 eighteen year old Abdoullakh Abouyezidovitch A, a Russian refugee of Chechen origin, murdered French history and geography teacher Samuel Paty and decapitated him for teaching a class about freedom of expression around the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed [Muḥammad] published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

 

7) The fast growing CAWU-Learning Center needs your support

November 2, 2020
We started our learning center for refugees in 2018 with one student only. In 2019-2020 we had 20 students in two classrooms. Today we have 31 refugee students in three classrooms. In 2018 we had one teacher only. In 2019-2020 we had two teachers several students who had been assisting with various tasks throughout the year. In 2020-2021 we have four teachers and a volunteer.
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

8) The Comboni congregation and the CAWU Learning Center need your support in helping African refugees in Cairo
November 12, 2020

“We are called to help the most marginalized and abandoned,” Father John Kipkemoi Korir (43), the parish priest of St. Joseph Church in Zamalek, Cairo, says. Work expanded and now Comboni missionaries are found across Africa. Father John comes from a humble background in Western Kenya and has been tremendously encouraging our refugee students.
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

9) Long-term partnership between Majorel Egypt and the Center for Arab-West Understanding

December 9, 2020
The Learning Center of the Center for Arab-West Understanding is drawing a great deal of attention. Thanks to Majorel Egypt we have been able to provide the refugee students with t-shirts and trousers so that they really look like a choir. Majorel also has been sponsoring other items for the choir such as musical instruments.
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

10) Our CAWU-Learning Center Refugee Choir performs on December 23 in Maadi, Cairo
December 21, 2020 

It is highly rewarding to work with refugee youth in our Learning Center. They have worked hard to prepare themselves for two evenings on December 21 and December 23. Click here for the rehearsal last Wednesday: https://youtu.be/a-X5dJCze0I

(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

11) The Holy Family between science, belief and wishful thinking

December 23, 2020
As 2020 winds to a close, as the Christmas holiday draws night, we are given to reflection. The Holy Family tradition is closely associated with the Christmas story. King Herod is distressed and unsettled about the news that the Messiah, the king of the Jews, has been born. In response to Herod’s actions, the innocent children of Bethlehem were slaughtered and the Holy Family fled to Egypt. Dr. Maḥmūd ʿUmar, a young Egyptian archeologist, wrote and self-published The Well of the Holy Family in Tal Basṭa.
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

12) An Egyptian Ambassador’s frustrations about pro-Muslim Brotherhood policies in the West

December 29, 2020
In October 2014 I had a unique personal meeting with an Egyptian Ambassador in function (and he is still in function) who freely spoke his mind about the dramatic political changes in Egypt in 2011-2013 and foreign countries meddling in this. The Ambassador spoke freely about different government actors, the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, Dutch-Egyptian relations and the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
(Click here for full text)

 

 

 

 

13) Highlights of 2020
December 31, 2020
It is good to highlight on the last day of the year the most important developments in 2020 in our work. The covid-19 pandemic had major consequences for Egypt and our work.
(Click here for full text)

 

 


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