The Silent Victims

I have previously posted blogs about the Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals and the great tasks that they take on in furthering animal rights in Egypt.

ESMA again has a monumental challenge facing them as the dust settles in post-revolution Egypt.

Multiple media reports have been aired about the human victims of the period of unrest in Egypt. Their sacrifice for freedom is a valiant one, which will not be forgotten lightly.

But what about the silent victims of the revolution, those who's voices have not been heard?

This is a call for help.A call to help the animals in Egypt currently suffering. Currently starving, and dying quietly as the rest of the country begins the arduous road to rebuilding itself.

With the drop in Egypt's tourism market, many stable owners living around the pyramids area have been faced with very grave decisions to make. Many of these stable owners rely on the tourism market as their primary source of income. No tourists equals no money to put bread on the table, let alone feed in a horse's or donkey's stall.

The result? Starvation.

Animals are lying dead in the street. Eyewitness reports note that horse carcasses are littering the entrance into the pyramids area. Hundreds more are struggling to survive, owners unable to feed them, left as skin and bones.

ESMA is appealing to anyone and everyone, both inside and outside of Egypt, to contribute in an attempt to put an end to this suffering. Their dedicated team of volunteers are themselves heading into the area around the pyramids to provide as much food and medical assistance to the suffering animals. Please find below the contact information for those based in Egypt. If you are outside of Egypt and want to do what you can in helping, you may message me through this blog and I will respond to you directly.

From everyone at ESMA, and all the animals, thank you for reading, and for opening your hearts.

As most of you have already heard, following the past 3 weeks of instability, we now have a very serious situation where the camels, donkeys, and horses in several areas are dying of hunger and lack of medical treatment. ESMA is raising funds through donations to feed and treat these poor animals itself, and we need all the financial help we can get! If you have not yet donated and can help out please do so, and forward this email to as many people as possible.

David Magdy, one of ESMA's active volunteers, will be in charge of collecting any donations for this cause. He can be reached by telephone on 0127844385. 

We also need physical help and not just financial! This week we will be going down to help as many of the critical cases as we possibly can in Nazlet El Seman - Haram, the stables on the ring Road, and the Giza Pyramid area, more information to come soon. We understand that lately things have been dangerous in regards to moving around the city, and we understand if you can't make it. However, things have calmed down a lot, and we need as many volunteers as possible to help with this tremendous effort! Please RSVP with me ASAP by replying to this email, or call me on 0105799777.

Horses starving in Giza

Their carcasses litter the streets :(  

Make Cairo Clean!

This is a Re-post for my friend LeAnne. I encourage people to actively get involved in this, as this issue is also one that I consider of utmost importance to further development in Egypt.

Letters from Egypt: Small Changes

I’ve been told that you don’t move to a country anticipating to change it; however, you should find one small thing that you can work on to give back to the place that houses you. After all, we are only guests and we should give back to the country that allows us to accrue experience whether it’s for your job or just life in general.

I thought my small thing was teaching the children around my office how to be nice to the stray dogs and now, they even take care of one of the puppies. This is a huge deal here as animal rights are just not on the priority list for Egyptians. Yet in addition to the poor treatment of animals, there’s another problem that faces this country: little to no environmental awareness.

First things first, I am NOT a greenie ranting through the streets about climate change or anything like the such. However, the past week or so, I’ve grown increasingly frustrated at the amount of trash I’m walking through on a regular basis, and it seems like its getting worse. I was so angry the other morning after walking through a heap of trash and finding bags thrown over a balcony near my apartment that I cleaned it up myself. This morning, I saw the same thing in the same place again. This is where I walk my dog and you know what, I’m sick of having to walk through this.

I’ve done blogs on the Zabaleen before, the largely Christian community that hand recycles and collects the trash throughout Cairo. Cleaning trash from the streets carries a social stigma, but I’m determined to help even if I’m only an army of one. I don’t understand is that age old saying, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” which also translates into something similar in Arabic, “Elnazafa men aleman” (cleaning for faith).

There are hardly any trash bins throughout the city and the ones that you do find are overflowing.

So I utilized Cairo Scholars this morning to get feedback as to organizing a cleaning crew. Someone sent this article as a parallel (Young Pakistanis Take One Problem into Their Own Hands), and while the article is discussing Pakistan, there are so many similarities.

• ·         “A group of young Pakistani friends, sick of hearing their families complain about the government, decided to spite them by taking matters into their own hands: every Sunday they would grab shovels, go out into their city, and pick up garbage.” Everyone here complains about the government, but no one does anything.

• ·         “The youth of Pakistan wants to change things,” said Shahram Azhar. As well as the youth in Egypt.

• ·         “The major problem people have here is that there are no bins,” said Murtaza Khwaja, a 21-year-old medical student. Same same

• ·         “People say, ‘This is nice, but things will never change,’ ” Mr. Khwaja said.

• ·         “The men in the mosque, on the other hand, were picky, wanting the young people to clean the mosque but not the surrounding area.”

• ·         “They said, ‘We already have Christians doing that for us in the morning,’ ” Mr. Khwaja said. Christians are a minority in Pakistan, and those who have no education often work in the lowest-paid jobs, like collecting trash, sweeping streets or fixing sewers.

I am a firm believer in grass roots initiatives, so not only do I want to help clean, but I also want to create awareness. I am not naïve to think this will help anything for awhile, but I am hopeful (which could be considered an idealist) that if organized properly, we could help make Egypt better for everyone.

Volunteer to Help Make Cairo Clean

I just sent out an inquiry on Cairo Scholars and have had many people comment/want to help with a clean up. The first matter is organizing a group of volunteers, so if you’re interested, please email me at leannegraves@hotmail.com and I will add you to a list that I’m creating to send out notifications.

While this is all in the preliminary stages, I have proposed that we start off once a month to get support. I can make signs in English and Arabic that would explain what we’re doing in order to follow the concept ‘teach by doing.’ This will create awareness. The streets will be small because longer streets may cause people to feel frustrated or as though their efforts aren’t producing any results.

Participants will wear a green shirt to easily identify volunteers.

The trash collected will be taken to Garbage City for the Zabaleen to sort/recycle.

As I said, this is only preliminary thoughts so if you would like to participate or have other suggestions, comments and/or thoughts, please let me know.

So yalla Egypt, let’s get to cleaning!