Little helpers

Amany Abdel-Moneim is surprised by the environmental awareness of children outside Cairo

---

Click to view caption

Clockwise from top: Hegazi and Hussein with their colleagues at the environmental exhibition of Demoshia School, the first prize winner; a miniature traditional bread oven; a student model; Komsan helps cleaning up his school, Tal Kafr Mansour

To boost the role of school children in spreading environmental awareness, the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA), an NGO, has been undertaking a pioneer "educational efficacy" initiative aimed at upgrading school infrastructure in four governorates: Fayoum, Minya, Aswan and Beni Sweif. Financed by the Egyptian-Swiss Fund, according to Azza Ali, head of the ICA Child Education Team in Beni Sweif, the project is currently running in five primary schools: Tal Kafr Mansour, Demoshia, Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, Hussein Nameq and Sayed Nabil: "We're applying a comprehensive plan based on several principles: monitoring school requirements, enhancing their cultural and developmental roles, promoting wider social participation through parent-teacher meetings and raising the technical and managerial standards of technical staff -- as well as enhancing the role of students in social development."

One 10-year-old Tal Kafr Mansour Primary School student, Mohamed Ahmed Komsan, was energetically sweeping the stairs: "We love our school enough to keep it clean. So my colleagues and I sweep the stairs every morning." In the light of the shortage in cleaning staff -- two old men are responsible for the five-floor building -- the school's environmental committee supervisor Ayman Mohamed Yehia explains that such an attitude is highly commendable. The committee, he explains, aims to raise the students' awareness of the environment and promote a concept of environmentally friendly behaviour; drinking water, for example, should be rationed. "Our students are exceptionally talented in this regard," he adds. "They've managed to create art out of the most readily available materials: sand, can covers, matches or cardboard. And their work stands proudly in our permanent environment exhibition. Every summer we celebrate the closure of the activities season by throwing a huge party in which we hand out promotional prizes to the most outstanding among them." One such is Amira Hassan, 10, who made a clock out of a plastic container and coloured cardboard: "Time is very significant and I want to teach my little brother how to deal with it."

Samir Shafiq Abdel-Aziz, head primary school department in the municipality, is very enthusiastic about such activities: "Children should learn to be self-reliant in preserving and cleaning up the environment in which they live -- a task in which schools and NGOs must forge a partnership. The latter in particular have a vital part to play in promoting awareness."

Through parent-teacher meetings, student workshops and the Navy Boy Scout Association as well as an informal peer-communication programme entitled "From Child to Child", the ICA promotes environmentally friendly behaviour across the board. One child education team member, Mona Mohamed Kamel, delineates the technique: "First we identify the problem, then collect the required information, analyse it and come up with a plan of action." The procedure helped, among many others, Amina Awad Shehata, 12, to solve one of the main problems afflicting her village of Tal Kafr Mansour: accumulating garbage and cattle excrement. Under Kamel's supervision, she led a group of students on a campaign to persuade the villagers to clean up; they asked the local Health Care Centre to warn those who failed to cooperate of the health consequences, and the mayor to provide waste disposal amenities.

It seems the four participating governorates are competing in the field of promoting the environment; it was Demoshia Primary School's permanent environment exhibition that won first prize this year. Minor masterpieces representing the environment as a whole, the work was designed and made wholly by students under the supervision of the art and Arabic teacher Tahani Salah and Ali Thabit Abdel-Latif, the latter being a keen environmentalist. Mahmoud Refaai Hegazi, 12, stood proudly beside a fellaha he made out of silicone and apricot seeds, while Mustafa Mohamed Hussein, also 12, held up a mosque of cardboard, carpet scraps and tiny lamps. School master Hussein Kamel is so delighted with the healthy, positive team spirit in which the school is run he has refused promotion because it would have meant leaving the school: "We've organised environmental awareness seminars in an untraditional way with help from the sheikh of the mosque and the Health Care Unit doctor, who explained various related concepts to the children. After these seminars, many students took the initiative to set up environmental awareness committees in their schools."