This Monday, young Egyptian bands and artists will play in Rawabet Theater, a new venue for independent creative artists.
The concert is organized by Cairo to Camps, a youth solidarity initiative for Palestinian refugees. The initiative honors Palestinian refugees worldwide by hosting an annual art and music event, whose revenues serve the cause.
This year, the concert aims to support Palestinian refugees who fled their homes in Al-Nahr Al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon due to the fighting between Fatah Al-Islam and the Lebanese army. No less than 20,000 people were displaced in what seems to be an on-going saga of displacement for the refugee community of Lebanon.
The concert will feature three Egyptian bands – Iskinderella, Fayrouz Karawya and the Trip Band – in what has been a continuous attempt by the project to promote the alternative music scene in Cairo. Self-expression through independent art has been the entry point of the project’s volunteers to Palestinian refugee camps, where a solidarity movement materialized through art workshops with the residents in the camp.
Solidarity expands to involve people beyond the volunteers. For one, all band members are performing free as a contribution to the displaced refugees. Their solidarity unfolds through their diverse tunes, some lending themselves to revive Egypt’s vernacular musical expression from Sayyed Darwish to Sheikh Imam, others seeking musical renovation by delving into contemporary Egyptian reality, while a third group opted to revisit the dynamics of rock music.
The hosting space, Rawabet, has also given its support to the campaign by offering its premises for the concert. The space’s name is Arabic for “ties, which is the raison d’etre of its work. Rawabet seeks to connect emerging and independent artists to an audience thirsty for creativity and authenticity, who would in turn, support these artists.
For their part, Cairo to Camps’ volunteers have been visiting Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon for the past five years to hold art workshops with children, interact with youth and incessantly learn from what they call “an indelible experience. The use of art is the product of their belief in its empowering value, especially in an atmosphere where there is a clear lack of a healthy and nurturing environment for the children of the camps.
Alia Mosallam, a Cairo to Camps volunteer who conducted a theater workshop in a Beirut-based Palestinian refugee camp, shares her memory of getting to know the children of the camps through an art workshop setting.
“My strongest realization is the power of art and expression through it. The children used our various means, be it theater, literature or art, to create a dimension for themselves, a sort of ‘safe space’ where they may comfortably express the realities they live in.
Concert proceeds will be geared towards relief for the internally displaced of Al-Nahr Al-Bared in northern Lebanon and in Beirut. They will also contribute to grassroots efforts to provide the children with recreational activities, as a therapeutic venue to heal the traumatizing experience of displacement.
Cairo to Camps was born with the 2000 Palestinian intifada, as various groups were looking for different forms of support and solidarity. Through its maturing process and its weaved ties with Palestinian communities in Lebanon, the project has realized the necessity of sustaining its activities and of expanding its undertakings to develop a growing community-based solidarity in Egypt.
