Report from BHW Egypt Partnership Facilitator Following Visit 27 Sept-2 Oct

The BHW new partnership facilitators and Middle East facilitator visited this partnership and related ones. During our time here we had several visits with refugee families and conversations about them. 

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Context

Our partners support the 60 families in several ways. They partner with some other organisations who minister to refugees and directly assist some. About 20 families are supported through Coming Generation, 20 more through two smaller organisations, and 20 directly. 

We were only able to visit one organisation and none of the beneficiaries that come regularly to the office were able to come. We were visiting in the first week of the new school year, so it was hard to get people together as they are very busy and have a lot of expense at this time of year. Also, our partner is the director of a school with 400 students, and so he was very busy as well. Along with the other visits we did, we were not able to get around everything.  

Coming Generation

The main partner is an organisation started in 2015 by an Anglican man in the 6th October City. He has since gone and now it is run by a wonderful couple, P and M. We spent some hours there with their team. P is an elder in a Presbyterian church and the organisation, Coming Generation, is governed by a board of people from several churches. 

6th October is the base for the UN refugee operations in Egypt, hence the large number of refugees in the area. Most of them are registered with the UN and they are repatriated from here to other countries. There are about 160,000 Syrian (mainly Moslem), 100,000 Sudanese (mainly Christian), and 70,000 others made up of Yemeni, Eritrean, Somali and others. 

Both P and M have given up successful careers to oversee the operations of the refugee centre. They serve about 4,000 families of which 20 are supported through our partners. Our partner and P grew up in the same denomination and knew each other. Their parents were pastors in the same denomination. 

They have several ministries operating, all for women. This includes sewing, vocational skills, computers, makeup, hair cutting and styling, henna makeup, nursing (homecare), and they have a nursery school for little ones. They are about to commence iron working and carpentry for men. The centre gets no help from the UN or the government. The government doesn’t help the refugees in any way. They also have clinics in nine locations with one small one in the centre we visited. Along with various activities for the refugees, they supply food supplements and school materials for the very needy as they have resources. They did a lot of food aid during the Covid period. Covid changed the circumstances of their people. Many had to stay home, and all the other social organisations closed. They managed to stay open right through apart from four days. 

They are pretty much locally funded from churches and local Christian individuals. They have eight full-time staff who deliver programmes and run the administration, and 30 volunteers who deliver the care and programmes. The volunteers come from several churches in the area. The UN gives registered families EGP1,200/month (US$60) which goes nowhere. 

They are governed by a five-person board from several churches in 6th October City and they are all quite active. They encourage their people to be involved and they are. 

M does a lot of discipleship, and many have become Christ followers, especially women and young women. She told us a couple of examples of the people she works with:
- One Sudanese woman had to flee from Sudan for her life as she was accused of adultery. She has become a Christian and now says, "God brought me here with my children, it was His plan". 

- A Syrian family has become believers. The husband says there is nothing good in Syria, the country and the religion has nothing.

- Many young women are open to being discipled. Islam is a religion of fear, especially for young women. Much ministry goes on in the homes of the young women and they are hungry to learn and for friendship. 

Plans at Coming Generation: There is still a lot to do in this place. One area they want to develop is a ministry to disabled people. Many that come from Syria especially have physical disabilities, almost all have some form of trauma. This is next on their agenda and maybe something we can look into.  

Our visit to Comin Generation: We spent a couple of hours visiting the centre with some of our partner’s team. They had 160 school bags and school materials which were distributed to the children going to school. We were involved in the distribution. We spent about an hour talking with the leaders of the work and trying to understand their values and motives. We came away very impressed with them.  

Comments

Our partner took us to this centre as it was very active and gave us a good idea about the situation of refugees and their circumstances. Also, he thinks there is ongoing potential to help here. 

The ones they help directly come to the centre each month and receive some aid packages and other things they need to help them in their lives. These ones are mainly not registered with the UN and struggle considerably more than those who are registered. They are not supposed to work, but many do. They are harassed by the authorities and their children don’t go to school as they have no papers. When they come in, they have a meeting, S encourages them, and they receive help. There are both Muslim and Christian refugees, mainly Syrian and Sudanese. 

This is a good work amongst very vulnerable people and should continue. Our partners, N and S, are maximising the impact of the funds we put in and I think are doing it well.