The following email reached us from Barbara and Fouad Ibrahim:
Dear friends,
At the end of October we again visited the aid project for the plastic recyclers among the waste collectors of Ezbet En-Nawwar. The situation among the garbage collectors has never been so bad, it’s fair to say. There is no longer a sour smell of garbage over the settlement – the garbage as many of you used to see it there no longer exists at all. The garbage collectors can no longer do anything with normal household waste, most of which consists of vegetable waste. Their pigs were killed in April/May this year – thousands of pigs. In Ezbet En-Nawwar, it is reported that only one sow survived in the settlement. When she gave birth to two piglets after a short time, the police soon arrived and killed them too.
No more household waste and no more pigs in the garbage collectors’ settlement to feed on this waste – a catastrophe for the garbage collectors.
The women are crying, the children are hungry. Many can no longer attend school in the waste picker area because their parents have no money to pay the fees. Men and young people drive their carts up and down the streets in search of cardboard and plastic – the only things the waste collectors can use at the moment.
This shows that our idea of focusing on plastic recycling and improving this process in small businesses was the right one. The number of breakers has recently increased from a good 50 to over 80 today.
Our enterprising project partner Gamal Zekrie has managed to rehabilitate the first businesses with the funds provided by the AFK, including some groups of Egyptians living in Europe. There is a great willingness among those affected to participate. They are happy when the electrical systems in their workshops are no longer life-threatening, when the plastered and painted walls no longer soak up the toxic fumes and when dust and dirt from the floor no longer get into the machines and destroy them because the floors are now fixed and tiled and the first machines have already been refurbished.
What is still urgently needed are new engines, which mostly come from abroad, but which can be bought in Egypt – if you have the necessary money.
We therefore continue to hope for generous donors. The project described in the appendix secures the livelihoods of many families (see the ECRED statistics in the report) and creates sustainable jobs.
What worries us greatly is the fact that the loss of the pigs has meant that the women have lost both their jobs and their important role in the economy of the waste collectors and that the children are searching more than ever for usable waste on the streets instead of going to school.
Unfortunately, we have not yet come up with a solution to these major problems….
We send you all our warmest greetings and thank you for your interest and support.
Fouad and Barbara
