There are currently more than 26 thousand Sudanese refugees in Cairo, Egypt. In an attempt to escape the horrific civil war that has ravaged Sudan for more than 23 years, many Sudanese travel overland to cross into Egypt, and make their way to Cairo in an attempt to try to gain assistance from the United Nations there.

Although Egypt kindly opens it's borders for the Sudanese to enter, it is unable to provide financial assistance to the refugees due to it's own rapidly growing population. Once in Cairo, it takes years for the United Nations to investigate and process each refugees' claim for refugee status and re-settlement to safer countries. During this time they therefore have no access to support for housing, education, or health care. They arrive into the capital city with what little they can carry and are forced to live well below the poverty line.

The majority of Sudanese refugees in Cairo live 7 or 8 to a tiny room with no air-conditioning (temperatures reach 40 C in summer), or heating in the winter. Male Sudanese refugees find it very difficult to gain employment in a city with and an already extremely high unemployment rate. Therefore, the women are forced to work as low paid maids, nannies and cleaners for rich ex-patriates or wealthy Egyptians. Due to this situation, refugee children are regularly left locked and unsupervised in cramped rooms so that their parents or older siblings can work low paid jobs in order to be able to simply feed and clothe them.

This above situation is particularly endemic in an area of Cairo called Ain Shams. You will not find Ain Shams in any of the travel guides or tourist recommendations for Egypt. It is a friendly working class area of the capital: highly populated, narrow streets; mobile street sellers shouting their wares; neighbors who know everyone in the local community. It's also an area rife with rubbish, pollution, high unemployment, and low standards of living. It is in this area of the city that many Sudanese refugees have been forced to try to settle. Rent is low in comparison to other areas and there is already a somewhat established Sudanese community there.

It is estimated that approx 3,000 Sudanese refugees currently live in the Ain Shams area of Cairo. Of this number approx 1,800 are children of school age. Until recently many of these children had NO access to ANY form of education. They were routinely left unsupervised and locked inside their family "home".

In 2005 the "Sudanese Community Development Project" (SCDP) was established by the Sudanese community in Ain Shams. With help from Refuge Egypt (a charitable organization operated in collaboration with All Saints Cathedral in Zamalek, Cairo), the SCDP has opened a Education Centre in the Ain Shams area of Cairo. Currently 500 + children are registered at "The SCDP Education Centre" which has a floor space roughly equivalent to half a tennis court. The Sudanese teachers at the Education Centre work largely unpaid despite having children of their own to support, and the facilities are extremely poor. Many children are forced to sit on the dusty floor or two to a small plastic chair. There are little writing materials available and virtually no educational stimulus.

Despite the poor conditions in the Centre, enrollments are increasing daily. However, The SCDP Education Centre desperately needs funding. Despite some small charitable donations and fundraising days organized in 2006, the Centre received no funding at all. Yearly registration fees of 50 LE (5 GBPs / 9 $) per child have covered the rent for Sept + Oct 2006. After this, the SCDP will be unable to even cover the rent on the current premises and the Centre will be forced to close.

Unless you can help:

By sponsoring a child with as little as 10 GBPs / 18 US$ a month, you can give a refugee Sudanese child in Cairo the dignity, independence and hope for their future that only education can provide. By helping the children of today to become independent from charity and learn to help themselves, we can assist all the future children of tomorrow.

Please read on for more details...