Help in Egypt

In 2012 we gained our status as a registered charity. It's not just a case of fundraising it's all the behind the scenes effort that we have to show and be answerable to our supporters and the U.K. Charity commission. Gaining a registration number gives creedence to the work and projects we were about to take on in Egypt. Our mission statement is worded to inform sponsors of our intentions. Projects to be considered are education and healthcare for kids. Over the last 5 years our interest in education for children from poor and needy families has taken us to remote villages. White faces have never been seen in most of the places we visited so building trust was going to be a priority. When families are so poor education isn't high on their list of priorities. Unfortunately most of the adults in theses remote villages do not read or write,trying to encourage the parents to allow us to help their children was not going to be easy. Working alongside a local village elders meant we had access to the Mosque and unused buildings we could turn into classrooms. Supplying desks,chairs,writing equipment,blackboards and many other teaching aids the small school was ready to go. The first few days were a bit rocky but as word spread more children arrived. Help in Egypt had installed a cooker with kitchen utensils to enable the children to have hot food during their school days. Over the next 2 years a permanent school was established where 85 children attended daily. During this initial period the children were registered and those requiring and medications were seen by a Doctor and treated. Those same with eye problems were transported to a vision center where they had eye tests which resulted in the administration of drops for minor infections and in some cases an operation for strengthening the muscles of a lazy eye was carried out. At times our funds were stretched to the limit as the medical problems increased daily and as time went on mores cases were brought to our attention. The initial aim of education and healthcare began to grow into the wider sphere of family welfare which included. The provision of clothing,blankets and basic food,consisting of rice,pasta,sugar,oil,beans flour and eggs. At present funding is at an all time low and in order to continue its work, Help in Egypt charity needs to enlist more sponsors who are willing to give a monthly donation into the charity account. Philip and I are passionate about our work. In order to be hands on we moved to Luxor and lived in a village alongside the local people which gave us a great insight into their daily lives and the constant struggle to survive,it also gave us the opportunity to learn to speak Arabic,albeit very basic. I hope you may have found our experiences interesting. Philip and I are both 70 years old, I had polio in 1947 aged 11 months and 8 years ago Philip had a triple heart by pass, neither of us were going to be deterred from our taking up this challenge and we are still as passionate about our work as we were when we first started.