Al-Ahram Weekly

		20 - 26 March 2003 Issue No. 630 People	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Pack of Cards
By Madame Sosostris
My first item this week, my dears, is truly inspiring. My dear colleague Aisha Abdel-Ghaffar was in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh recently interviewing Polish First Lady Jolanta Kwasniewska about her tremendous work with the non-profit charity foundation, Communication Without Barriers, which she established in 1997 to help enrich the lives of disadvantaged Polish children. In fact, Mrs Kwasniewska was in Sharm El-Sheikh with a delegation of Polish orphans as part of a programme called Let's Open the World for Children, which enables Polish orphans and disabled children to visit various countries worldwide. Thus far, the foundation has provided the means for 3,000 children to go on these holiday trips abroad, which helps them gain new experiences and learn about the world. Two years ago, Mrs Kwasniewska accompanied another group of disabled children on a visit to Egypt.
"This is my third visit to Egypt," Mrs Kwasniewska said. "The hospitality of the people makes the country very special. Many Polish tourists visit Egypt, which also shows that our two countries enjoy close ties. I greatly respect Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, whom I have met several times both in Egypt and in Poland. She has accorded children's and women's issues a great deal of attention and I admire that. I believe we share many common interests."

Last week, the American University in Cairo's Alexandria alumni chapter held a very special dinner at the seaside city's famous Pastroudis club in honour of AUC graduate Lubna Abdel-Aziz. The gathering included graduates ranging from yesteryear to as recently as '98, and Abdel-Aziz said "it felt great to be amongst fellow AUCians, a diverse group with whom I really bonded."
Abdel-Aziz gave a brief presentation about her academic and extracurricular experiences at AUC, which included many appearances on the Ewart Memorial Hall stage in roles like that of Masha in Chekov's Three Sisters, a performance that was hailed by the Egyptian press and ended up attracting the attention of filmmakers. Upon graduating, she was elected Miss AUC and was the recipient of a coveted Fulbright scholarship. Her successful career in Egyptian film would come years later after her return from the US, where she studied drama at UCLA.
I am especially delighted about Abdel-Aziz's success -- after all, she is not only a dear friend, but a dedicated colleague, whose Limelight column has graced this very same page for the past two years.

My pack features yet more uplifting news this week, my sweets. Along with prominent actor and United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador for Arab States Hussein Fahmi, I attended an event aimed at creating awareness about HIV/AIDS in Arab countries, in order to prevent the further spread of the disease. Co-hosted by the UNDP Resident Representative in Egypt Antonio Vigilante, the event brought together a bevy of entertainment and media personalities, including Safeya El-Emari, Mahmoud Qabil, Ezzat Abu-Ouf, Khaled El-Nabawi, Lebleba, Mona Zaki, Medhat Saleh, Hakim, Mohamed Sarwat, my Al-Ahram Weekly colleague Hala Sakr, Sally Sami from the Egyptian Gazette and Amal Hassan from Al-Gomhouriya.

This is quite a women's month, my dears, with International Women's Day on 8 March, Egyptian Women's Day on the 16th and Mother's Day on the 21st. To commemorate all this, the General Organisation of Cultural Palaces is organising a mega celebration of the three events on 29 March, at the Gumhouriya Theatre. Egyptian women pioneers in various fields, as well as a number of "ideal mothers", will be honoured at the event -- these include the newly appointed Judge at the Supreme Constitutional Court Tahani El-Gebaly, filmmaker En'am Mohamed Ali and author Fatheya El-Assaal.

Also in honour of women, Alexandria's French Cultural Centre recently invited a number of successful women journalists to speak about their experiences. Prominent Elle magazine journalist Marie Françoise Colombani spoke about her recent efforts to introduce Afghanistan's first women's magazine, and our very own Aisha Abdel-Ghaffar spoke of the socio-cultural factors that continue to impede women's progress in the field. Abdel-Ghaffar also relayed her experience in both the journalistic and diplomatic domains during her stay in Paris as Al-Ahram's correspondent. The centre's director, Gilles Gaultier, also held a dinner party in honour of the participants.

In much the same vein, Noss Al-Donya magazine's Editor-in-Chief Sanaa El-Besi inaugurated an exhibition of women's art at the Picasso gallery in Zamalek this week. "Noun Wa Fenoun 2003" showcases paintings and jewellery created by 24 female artists including Amani Abdel-Bari, Attia Mustafa, Evatte Seif, Kristina Nakhla, Gihan Maher, Ikram Omar, Sonia Beshara and jewellery designers Nahla Quawy, Sara Abdel-Azim and Kanza Aboulea. The exhibition, gallery manager Mohamed Abdel-Rahman told me, is running through 30 March.

More good news for women! Organised by the Heliopolis Community Activities Association (HCAA), a Mother's Day market opens today at the Le Meridien Heliopolis hotel's charity bazaar, where shoppers will enjoy a wide variety of gifts and goods at very reasonable prices -- all in support of the HCAA's commendable Clean Up campaign. The French Cultural Centre in Heliopolis, meanwhile, also celebrated Women's Day by hosting a fashion show of traditional and contemporary clothes by the Technical Institute for Fashion, as well as Shahira Mehrez. Following the fashion show, a jewellery exhibition displaying oriental and modern design was opened, featuring oriental pieces made by Nagwa Mahdi and contemporary French ones created by Sebastien Parfait. The exhibit will run for the next three weeks.

I have just been told that Cairo Opera House Director Samir Farag has green-lighted a oud workshop to take place from 12 to 27 April. Supervised by Ratiba El-Hefni, the workshop will be open to advanced-level oud players from all nationalities and ages, who will have the opportunity of working with renowned Lebanese oud player Sharbal Rouhana. At the end of the workshop, a commencement party will be held where the students will perform pieces they learned during the course. Rouhana is famous for compositions like Zikra (Memory) and Kai La Nansa (In order not to forget), and as a solo musician, he has participated in several festivals in Lebanon as well as other Arab and foreign countries.

Also at the Opera House, the Egyptian Musical Youth Assembly, supervised by Samha El-Kholi, will be performing with the Bahrain Ensemble for Flamenco on 23 March at the Small Hall. The show features Mohamed Khalil, Adel Adham, and Eissa Khalil amongst its talented musical performers.

It also pleases me to announce, my loves, that under the auspices of Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram editor-in-chief and chairman of the board, and Sami Metri, the head of the Coptic Heritage Friends Association, the Fifth Conference on Coptic Heritage will take place at the Al-Ahram building on Al-Galaa Street's grand conference hall from 23 to 25 March.