WATANI International
30 January 2011
Indian week in Aswan
Aswan, Egypt’s southernmost governorate, recently hosted an Indian Week organised by the Indian Embassy in Cairo in cooperation with the Aswan governorate and South Valley University.
The event included seminars for the university students, a photography exhibition on Egyptian-Indian ties and exhibition of books on Indian traditions. Indian films subtitled in Arabic were screened daily.
Colour your life
For the third year in a row, the European Union delegation in Egypt has held a photographic competition for amateurs. This year’s concept was entitled ‘Egyptian Celebrations’. Participants were urged to explore national celebrations in Egypt. Most opted for local celebrations (mulids) in various parts of Egypt and on the iftar provided to the poor during Ramadan.
Out of 220 pictures from all over Egypt, only 28 were chosen for the exhibition. The winner was 34-year-old accountant Ahmed Mustafa, who won 1,000 euros in prize money for Colour Your Life.
Mustafa’s winning photograph was of a girl with typical Egyptian features and a broad smile. He also snapped residents of Gezirat al-Dahab (Gold Island), a small island on the Nile, on the day of a wedding when relatives and neighbours carried new furniture and belongings to the couple’s house.
The best 28 images will be on show at the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo from 30 January to 10 February.
The 60th anniversary
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the start of bilateral relations between Australia and Egypt, the Australian Embassy in Cairo last month hosted celebrations at the Ghouri Complex in Islamic Cairo.
Australia’s ambassador to Egypt, Kevin Rudd, gave a speech in which he said Egypt has been the passage between Australia and Europe since 1869, when the Suez Canal opened. The first Australian Embassy in the Arab World opened in Cairo in 1950.
“Now Australia is supporting Egypt’s efforts to remove landmines in the Western Desert through the developmental programme of the United Nations,” Mr Rudd added. “And we, as Australians, are proud to be one of the few countries that have been working consistently since 1982 with the multi-national forces in Sinai.”
The celebrations featured a fusion Australian-Egyptian musical performance by internationally-acclaimed indigenous Australian musician, composer and classical didgeridoo player William Barton, and a traditional Nubian band led by Intissar Abdel-Fattah, maestro of the Ghouri Complex. Mr Rudd also opened a collaborative Australian-Egyptian photographic exhibition by award-winning indigenous Australian Wayne Quilliam and Egyptian photographer Tamer Shahin.
Safe Cities Free of Violence
In an attempt to halt the epidemic of violence against girls and women in urban areas, the Global Safe Cities Free of Violence Against Women and Girls Programme is the first cross-regional initiative dedicated to making cities safer for them, while improving the quality of life for all city dwellers.
“Every day, women and adolescent girls face sexual harassment and violence as they go about their daily routines—whether on city streets, on buses and trains, or in their own neighborhoods,” said UNIFEM Executive Director Inés Alberdi at the Third International Conference on Women’s Safety last November in Delhi. “This limits their freedom and rights to education, work, recreation and participation in political life.”
The Safe Cities programme focuses on slum areas and the poorest urban dwellers in Quito, Ecuador; Cairo, Egypt; New Delhi, India; Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; and Kigali, Rwanda.
In Egypt, a celebration was launched last December through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The celebration included a theatrical play by the Bossi (Look) Ensemble, tackling realistic stories and experiments of many Egyptian and refugee women. The ensemble was founded in 2000 by female students from the American University in Cairo who focused on publicising the plight of some 200 women from all over the world who suffered solely on account of their being women.
The celebration also featured an exhibition of children’s paintings that expressed their perspective of violence, as well as a display of handmade artefacts by refugee women.
Translation and exchange
Under the title of “Translation and Exchange”, the German Embassy in Cairo recently organised a number of workshops with the aim of promoting the qualifications of young translators, and to support the cooperation between the German and Arab universities in the field of translation. The project is funded by DAAD, the German Academy Exchange Services.
The Copts
Clips of works by the Spanish filmmaker Alvaro Sao were screened at the Cervantes Institute, the Spanish cultural centre, during a conference organised by the institute. During the conference, Sao talked about his films including the documentary The Copts, which was shot in Egypt from 2009 to 2010,and depicted the everyday life of the monks of St Makarius’s Monastery. During his recent five-month stay in Egypt, Sao shot some 60 hours of video scenes fof daily life of Egyptians. He has been in Cairo to work on his project Outside the limits ??need details??.