Valuable Girl: Empower 100,000 Girls in Egypt

Big Sisters from Coptic Orphans' Valuable Girl Project in collaboration with seven Community Development Associations (CDAs) in Assiut, Egypt joined forces on a street cleaning campaign in their villages this past summer. 

The story began on June 30th at the Awlady Community Development Association, El-Nikhela. It was time to assess the village needs before launching this great initiative. The Big Sisters extended an invitation to a group of official public leaders and representatives. The girls introduced the Valuable Girl Project and discussed the challenges, shortfalls and dreams they still have for their villages. The lack of a garbage collection system was the most pressing challenge they discussed. This apathy for the environment evidenced by garbage littered on their local streets, was something they wanted to change. 

In some areas, these girls received praise and support for their efforts and initiative, while unfortunately, in the village of El-Nekhila, their efforts were met with sarcasm and belittled. When voicing their concerns to the head of El-Nekhila municipality for not implementing a working system for sanitation for this village, his response to the girls was: “I see that one cleaning worker is more valuable than 100 useless girls.” The girls felt humiliated and requested an apology from him. He apologized, though he was still convinced that the girls were not serious about this initiative. Despite the criticism they received, the girls’ remained resilient.

The girls decided to divide and conquer; they facilitated roles, mobilized their resources and broke up into different groups, so that they could have greater reach in the village. Before launching their initiative, the Big Sisters visited the head of the municipality once more to share their plan of execution. He was impressed by their organizational skills and commitment to this project. They were, to their own suprise, met with encouragement. The Head of the municipality provided the girls with extra tools, tractors, hauling equipment and extra aide workers so they could remove all the garbage from the streets they identified and begin paving.

For two consecutive days, Big Sisters and Little Sisters engaged all the residents of the village to work side by side with them and lend a helping hand. People of all ages, from young children to the elderly, participated in cleaning up the streets. The girls ignited a subject that was formerly taboo in the area--and provided a wake-up call to all, that a woman's role in improving society in Egypt is vital. In response to these activities, the head of the municipality made a public admission that the girls played a positive role in the community and sent a video message to all the girls in this project acknowledging their efforts. 

Furthermore, when he learned that the CDA  where the Valuable Girl Project holds its activities was nearing the end of its contract, he designated a venue and fully equipped office in the municipality for them to continue their work. He remarked:  “I’m ready to help in any way you require. You made us work actively. There is nothing more uplifting than seeing the community change their negative attitudes towards women, not out of rebellion, but because of acts of kindness."

The Big Sisters in El-Nekhila implemented a call to action and a remarkable change in their community. We are excited by the prospects of a ripple effect that is to follow in other communities throughout Egypt.

Also on November 5, 2019, we celebrated the Valuable Girl Project in Assiut at a closing ceremony and event that was very successful.