A project with and about women in Egypt, Post 25 January revolution

Language: 
English
Sent On: 
Tue, 2014-07-15
Year: 
2014
Newsletter Number: 
31

 

 

 

AWR, Cairo, July 15, 2014

 

Three years after the 25 January revolution the situation in Egypt is still an interesting topic for researchers, social development workers and journalists, who continuously try to analyse the reasons behind the developments taking place in the country, as well as give their predictions for what is to come.

 

In contrast I, together with Aalborg University in Denmark and Kenana, an Egyptian NGO are working on a project in which we aim at highlighting the conditions of the life of Egyptian women, who often are the topic for such before-mentioned analysis, however, we focus on the accounts of the women themselves. How do they experience these three years have affected them and their lives, if at all? We try to get a more complete picture of the women’s lives and what they dream about for the future to hold.

 

While most material focuses on Cairo, we include a broad and diverse picture of a very fragmented and heterogeneous Egypt, trying to include the different factions these women represent, such as female breadwinners from Upper Egypt, Bedouin women from Sinai, nuns from the Delta and activists from Cairo. To achieve this as successfully as possible, we have teamed up with local organizations and communities, e.g. Center for Arab-West Understanding in Cairo, the Coptic Catholic Diocese of Minya and Habiba Learning Center in Sinai, who have all been of great help to achieve our ambitious goal of creating platforms allowing for interaction across the divisions the Egyptian society normally is constituted by.

 

Additionally we have asked three women from Sohag, where Kenana is located, as well as four young women from Cairo to help us carry out the project. They have been invited to attend a training aiming at developing their knowledge and skills in academic interview conducting as well as workshop facilitating. You can read about how insightful this training was in the following link, where we share the outcome of the two-day training: www.newspiritz.eu/awr1/node/49507.

 

 

The involvement of especially the young women from Cairo has also contributed to these women understanding their country as a more complex entity than they were aware of before engaging in this project. They have been presented for realities in the country they live in, they never knew existed. But above all, they have be interacting with fellow country-women who lead completely different lives than they do, which have given them a broader understanding of how Egypt is - outside of their comfort zone. In the following article Christine, one of our assistants, shares her experience of her first ever visit to El Minya, which is in Upper Egypt, approximately four hours by bus from Cairo.

 

 

We invite you to follow the progress of our project by liking our Facebook page (follow the link below), where we also inform about coming events and upload pictures and articles from our fieldwork throughout the country.

 

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/withandaboutwomeninegypt

 

 

Mette Toft Nielsen

Scientific Assistant, Aalborg University –Denmark

Previous research intern at Arab-West Report (2012-2013)

[email protected]

 

All photos are taken from our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/withandaboutwomeninegypt