photo taken by Ahmed Hamed
Last Saturday some of us got together at the Fablab space in Maadi, Cairo to discuss the openvillage project at the workshop. It was a nice meeting with a small group of people and the discussions went on and ended up with @karimyassin volunteering to organize a trip to sekem, and discussing the different possibilities of the Reef in an Egyptian context ( @m_tantawy - @mohabessam already started to explore here and here ) , besides other talks on decentralization and getting outside of Cairo [or not ].
so briefly we were:
@Nashat_3 briefly an IT entrepreneur, experimenting in Iot with farming, and smart Gardens, He participated in different hackahtons and entrepreneurship training/competitions, Fablab trainings. He is looking to know more like minded people and share more ideas and get feedback from the community.
@M.Elshafey works on this carpooling app and this idea for building a community in an island
@m_tantawy working on this open source furniture and Maerfa cultural project
@karimyassin working on Cilas an alternative institute for liberal arts and sciences education in Cairo.
@mohabessam a community architect participated in Elzeba project in Egypt and worked on a publication in Germany.
Neveen : she came from Alexandaria, living and working there in the field of cost accounting and import/exports. most of her work is now done online, she wants to move to Cairo as their are more opportunities and in Alexandria most of the work is managed by families. she studied in Sohag, love to draw and thinks Cairo is better place for young initiatives.
Aya : Also came from Alexandria, she is doing a masters degree in Anthropology, writing about new technologies and knowledge economy. She used to work as an assistant manager in a company but she quite because here interests were somewhere else, now she is looking forward to get into organizations working in development, she volunteered in different projects.
@Tahra.Tarek working in the media field, now doing a diploma for cultural awareness, she worked in organizing several lectures in the journalism syndicate and other places, wrote some articles, Joined 8 months ago “el-Beet” ( literally the home ) a participatory art space in downtown. they provide several workshops for writers, artists, …etc on storytelling an other skills.
Besides,
Assem : fresh engineering graduate, now waiting to join the army, mandatory, and he is part of the fablab community for the past 3-4 years, expert in digital fabrication, now teaching the maker diploma, he likes music and plays oud.
@ahmedhamed : a multi-media journalist, part of Aswat Masria team ( from the early beginning till the end ) , photographer, and filmmaker ( one of his films, his first work )
Ahmed : 21 years old from Cairo, now studies computer science in Sohag, he is passionate about information technology, and organizing thoughts wants to change the way of thinking, routine, and he is a kick boxing player. ( he is also starting an initiative in his university to improve the way of teaching )
Amira : from Mesaha, now working on an Eco-lodge / farm in Siwa with other friends. and works alternative care.
after getting to know each other in small groups and then within the large group, discussing the difference between Sohag, Cairo, and Alexandria. we got to discuss and explore the concept of open village and how it could be done in the Egyptian context. We discussed the other living communities, such as Sekem, crafts villages as Tunis in Fayoum, and how they are surviving and got initiated.
one interesting example was mentioned by Ahmed Hamed about Evelin in Tunis village, she started as she saw that young girls are getting no education and are experiencing a lot of abuse. so what she did (as a foreigner ) she didn’t start a women rights organization or a campaign against child abuse, she started a crafts school to teach pottery, so this school was a place for the girls to go and get some education, express themselves and it changed a lot of lives, One of which he followed after seeing an old documentary about her as a child, she is Rawia, she has now a big workshop and she told him that this school changed not only her life but other girls as well.( short documentary about Rawia ) and this raised the question of documenting such success stories and learning from them, and monitoring the impacts of our projects. Ahmed even thinks that may be one day he can start a film school in a small village and live there.
Tantawy mentioned that, there are different initiatives working and struggling already, and we should build a bigger community using the platform and share our experiences. He sees the potential of such a platform and sees it as a chance to useful collaboration instead of competing which is a mentality that is found within some local groups and initiatives. Also a method to get out of the general depression that is in the air.
Amira explained what is happening [going to happen] In Siwa, this is a solid long term project, where a group of people is going to buy a land in Siwa, already scouted the potential places, and then start building with local methods learning from the existing architecture and farming depending on the available resources. a potential house to be linked in the openvillage network. she mentioned other far away places where this could happen as El-Qusair.
Neven raised the issue of exporting goods, as the Government is encouraging this with some benefits as tax reduction ? which could generate revenue for such a local place that is well connected globally.
Karim explained the idea of Cilas and how it was formed through different metaphors, and mentioned that some Alumni are discussing opening a Center in Alexandria. and he is open to replicate the experience in other places as well.
this was mainly the main topics that we touched upon, and we continue online.