Report from BHW Egypt Partnership Facilitator Following Visit November 2024

Recent Events

Activities

After the funds from BHW were sent, the team in Egypt had a rethink and decided that a better, more cost-effective strategy would be to refurbish and boost existing kindergartens. With the funds sent, they were able to do that in three kindergartens. 

The three kindergartens are:
1) Kom Haraz village near Assiut. There are about 400 people in the church and the kindergarten has 80 children and employs four staff, members of the church. This is a very poor village. 

2) Soft Len Ban village near Minya. There are about 500 people in the church and 100 children in the programme. They employ five people to run the kindergarten. In this one they purchased chairs and uniforms for the children. 

3) Hor village. About 300 people in the village and 80 children. They employ four teachers. They bought equipment for both teaching and playing. 

These three refurbished kindergartens are already making an impact. Because they had become discouraged and were not functioning well, children were not coming or could not wait to leave and ended up spending their whole day playing on the streets. These are children from 3 years old and up. They were getting into trouble, were not safe and were targets for other groups. Since making the changes, the children are enthusiastic again. And, because the kindergartens are in churches with loan programmes, the parents are able to contribute to their education. This means that they can become self-sustaining where in the past it was very difficult.  

Context

Egypt is under severe pressure economically. The economic impact of COVID is still being felt, and the war in Ukraine continues to affect the tourism sector, their largest income earner. The conflict across the border also puts pressure on the country and makes the people very nervous. Along with this, the government has taken on huge infrastructure development because of the rapid growth of the population, and this is putting huge strain on the economy. Inflation is running at around 25% / annum. 

Nationally the Holiness Movement church people and the churches continue to struggle economically as inflation bites. However, the loan programme (EGY04) is making a huge difference to the people who get the loans and to the churches involved in the programme. 

The kindergartens are an important part of the strategy of the movement to reboot their ministry. They had become despondent and discouraged in the face of their poverty. The aggressive M community and the Coptic churches saw them as targets, and they constantly lost people to them. 

In the past, several churches had developed kindergartens as part of their ministry to their people and as outreaches. These had been successful in the past, but both the other groups had imitated them and ran much better programmes with better facilities as they had the resources to do that. So, the kindergartens largely fell to a very low ebb. 

Ideas for the Future

There are 25 churches with existing kindergartens, and they would like to assist all of them over the coming years. The cost is US$1,000 per kindergarten.

Current Issues and Challenges

There is constant pressure on the evangelical Christian churches from the Muslim community and the Coptic Church.

Generally, evangelical Christians are the poorest of the poor and they are quite discouraged.

There is great poverty among the Christians in the Holiness Movement churches. This translates to a lack of appreciation for education, and they are easily drawn away, especially with offers of money, jobs, free education etc. 

Prayer and Praise Points

1) That the kindergartens that have been refurbished are functioning well and having an impact in the lives of the children, families and churches
2) That this has proved to be a real boost to the morale of the poor Christians 

Comments

I would like to recommend that we fund up to 10 this coming year and then look at more in subsequent years until they are all refurbished.