Women’s Rights in Egypt

Today, we celebrate International Women’s Day. Women’s rights are dear to our heart and are central in many of our programmes.

One of our staff recently visited an agriculture training programme for women in Egypt. In front of a group of twenty five a woman holds a small yellow plant that has been affected by worms. She explains about the damage a small worm can do to crops.

This group comes together weekly for a season to learn about agriculture. Aisha, one of the participants shares: ‘the training is very different than what we’re used to. Here in Egypt, we’re used to experts telling us exactly what to do, but in this programme we are able to discover things ourselves. We learn a lot more this way. I now know how to make compost and I’m producing more than my husband.’

Aside from agriculture, women learn how to read and write and they learn about nutrition, health and hygiene. Women’s rights are important topics during the sessions and recently the women discussed violence at home and female genital mutilation. ‘I was planning to get my eleven year old daughter circumcised, but I decided not to go through with it after the session,’ Fatima shares.

We are very grateful to see these women flourish!

08 March 2017