Tag: Women of Egypt

EGYPT: Architectural Historian May El-Ibrashy Wins Prince Claus Fund’s Impact Award

Egyptian architectural historian May El-Ibrashy is among the winners of the 2022 Prince Claus Impacts awards for her contribution and innovation in her community.

The Prince Claus Fund has announced on Tuesday the six recipients of the first 2022 Prince Claus Impact Awards. 

The new award honours individuals whose work in art and culture engages their communities in innovative, positive ways while addressing issues of urgent contemporary relevance.

El-Ibrashy is an architect whose work centres on community engagement through heritage conservation, rehabilitation, preservation, and re-signification. She is the founder of the Megawra Built Environment Collective, a twinship between an architectural firm and an NGO.

Through her work she has managed to create a real difference for the often-marginalised communities living in Cairo’s historic centre and has created an important counter narrative to the current government’s focus on urban expansion and renewal, creating a new sense of hope and pride for the communities she works with. 

Focusing on Al-Khalifa District in Sayeda Zeinab, Al-Hattaba district by the citadel, and Al-Imam Al-Shafii district, El-Ibrashy’s participatory conservation initiative is an inspiring successful community dialogue that has been going on for 10 years. The impact of the dialogue still resonates in the communities of Al Khalifa District, Al-Hattaba and Al-Imam Al-Shafii.

The other five recipients are: 

Ailton Alves Lacerda Krenak (Brazil), an indigenous leader, environmentalist, and philosopher.

Alain Gomis (Senegal), a Senegalese-French film director and screenwriter.

Hassan Darsi (Morocco), a visual artist whose work promotes critical thinking about public spaces and citizenship.

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara (Cuba), an artist and human rights defender.

María Medrano (Argentina) is a writer, poet and editor.

The Awards Ceremony shall take place in the Royal Palace Amsterdam on the 7th of December.

source/content: english.ahram.org.eg (headline edited)

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Egyptian Architectural Historian May El-Ibrashy.

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EGYPT

EGYPT: Marwa El-Selehdar Egypt’s First and Youngest 24-year Female Shipmaster

Navigating AIDA IV through new Suez Canal on opening day: Meet Egypt’s 1st female shipmaster.

Marwa El-Selehdar reveals how she became Egypt’s first female shipmaster and her journey to be part of the new Suez Canal celebrations.

As the government promoted the new Suez Canal as “Egypt’s gift to the world,” Marwa El-Selehdar, the country’s first and youngest female shipmaster, received the good news.

The 24-year-old would assist in navigating a naval vessel through the new waterway during the opening celebrations on 6 August, she was recently informed.

“I never thought that my dream would finally come true. I am going to be part of the inauguration as a second naval officer on the deck of the training ship AIDA IV,” El Selhdar told Al-Ahram newspaper.

El-Selehdar believes that her participation as the youngest and first Egyptian and Arab female shipmaster would bolster the image of the “civilised Egyptian women.”

“I was filled with joyous fear when I first learned about my participation.”

A 2012 graduate of the Arab Academy of Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT) in the coastal city of Alexandria, El-Selehdar said that becoming a shipmaster was a childhood dream.

“In my first time ever training on board a ship, [My] Captain Abdel Hamid El-Qady and the rest of the crew made me feel at home,” El-Selehdar recalled.

Initially enrolled as a student in the maritime transport department at AASTMT, El-Selehdar was later encouraged to move to the marine navigation department at the school when she found out that there were no rules that prohibit females from studying to become shipmasters, she said in a television interview back in 2010.

Her determination to join the marine navigation department was further fuelled when she heard that a female student from the African Island of Djibouti won a scholarship to study at the department. 

“I challenged myself and asked for a transfer from the maritime transport department to the marine navigation department. Amid a wave of refusals, this was the battle I had to fight in order to achieve my dream,” El-Selehdar said.

As she joined a male-dominated profession, El-Selehdar says that her mother encouraged her [as a woman] to continue on the path she chose.

Egypt has been preparing for grand celebrations for the opening ceremony of the new Suez Canal waterway on Thursday.

On Tuesday, nine swimmers who belong to the Egyptian Paralympics team – set to compete in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics —  crossed the new waterway holding a huge Egyptian flag.

Incoming visitors to the country had their passports stamped with “Egypt’s gift to the world” by Customs authorities. 

After fulfilling her first dream of becoming a shipmaster, El-Selehdar is ready to achieve her second dream of living through the opening of the new canal.

“I always thought this project was a major one, but I never realised we would actually witness this remarkable and extraordinary event,” El-Selehdar said.

source/content: english.ahram.org.eg (headline edited) text / pix: marineinsight.com

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pix: marineinsight.com

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EGYPT

Book Review: ‘Tales of Women from Our Land,’ an approachable read about gender by Elham Fateem

Elham Fateem’s collection of vignettes about successful Egyptian women in nontraditional careers makes an interesting and approachable read about gender for specialists and the public alike.

A book about gender is normally not an attractive read for the public, yet putting it in the form of stories rendered Hekayat Setat men Baladna (“Tales of Women from our Land”) an interesting read for the specialists in the field and regular readers alike.

The writer is Elham Fateem, a veteran in the human development field who has worked for decades on developing womens’ and childrens’ skills and capacities. She was able, in a smooth writing style, to present stories of regular women and show their strengths while explaining the paths they took and the obstacles they faced.

The subject is women who broke the society’s taboos in choosing nontraditional careers such as diver, butcher, mechanic, carpenter, marble worker and others. The tales came from her fieldwork and interviews across Egypt’s governorates. The writer states that writing about the women she worked with has been a dream of hers for a long time. Taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic, she finally wrote and published it.

The writer chose different examples of women that she considered heroines for taking the route they chose in their life. The subjects are diverse; they come from different backgrounds, whether educational, financial or social ones. The choice of jobs depends on each woman’s circumstances, choices and inclinations.

The writer chose seventeen women to profile, which is still just a drop in the ocean.

The subjects are more than we can imagine. Oppressed women and those who have lost their rights by the society are all over the media and can be seen in day to day life, but those who are successful in a non-traditional ways need some digging to show the difficulties they had to face in order to stay on the paths they chose.

source/content: english.ahram.org.eg (edited)

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Tales of Women from Our Land, by Elham Fateem

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EGYPT