The Humanity Project

(Editor’s Note: The Humanity Project has partnered with an important nonprofit group in Egypt: Egyptian Association for Educational Resources, or E-ERA. They are non-governmental and non-religious. Our partnership involves a blog-and-photo exchange to promote better understanding of the humanity we all share. This is E-ERA’s second blog about their work to help young people, an article written especially for the Humanity Project. You will find the Humanity Project’s first blog written for E-ERA at http://egypt-era.org/?p=1309.)

One of E-ERA’s major projects is the Access Alumni Network. www.accessalumni.net This network embraces students who are well-trained in the fields of capacity building, civic engagement, leadership and tolerance. E-ERA is proud of its Access students and is pleased to share with the world one of their community service projects entitled “Dreamers,” which was fully organized and carried out by the Access students themselves. The students were influenced by the training given to them through E-ERA’s programs and were eager to use what they had learned to help those who are in need. They decided to help students who were unable to hear or speak but who could use their sense of touch to make handmade products.  The Access students worked with a foundation  named “Omniat Misr for Culture and Art.” This foundation specializes in teaching disabled girls to make handmade products. So the Access students built their community service project on a two-way basis, helping the girls to sell their handmade products but also learning their sign language in order to be able to communicate with them. And Access students also learned from the girls how to make those handmade products, thereby giving the disabled girls the power of being in charge. Half the money from these sales went to the deaf-mute students to develop their art activities and the other half to the children in a cancer hospital. They found a place called “The Town House Gallery,” where most of the products were sold, and the money was given to the disabled girls to develop their work. By accomplishing this mission, Access students learned that they could make a difference in their own lives as well as the lives of others.   

The Egyptian Association for Educational Resources (E-ERA) is a non-governmental and nonprofit organization founded in 2005 under the Ministry of Social Solidarity. It is a professional grassroots organization working to promote youth development through many pillars such as Civic Education, ICT into Education, Professional Development, Cross Cultural Understanding and Youth Empowerment and Leadership.

Tags: cross-cultural understanding, E-ERA, Egyptian Association for Educational Resources, human values, Humanity Project, international understanding, teaching human values, The Humanity Project

This entry was posted by Bob Knotts on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 at 9:28 am and is filed under Our Programs, Sharing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.