It was a normal day in the life of English teacher Hithem Elsayed in his hometown in Al Sharqiya Governorate. He was reading a magazine in his car while waiting for his dad. Unexpectedly, he found a little girl standing in the street next to his car who asked: “what are you reading?”
“A magazine,” Elsayed answered, thinking that would be the end of it. He never saw her answer coming.
“What does ‘magazine’ mean?” the little girl enquired.
Al Sharqiya is located north-east of Cairo, about 114km away. The nearest cultural centre is 75 minutes away from most villages in the governorate. Residents have limited to no access to books or magazines. The theatre and cinema have never been a part of their lives.
“This unexpected encounter was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I knew that children in my hometown don’t have access to cultural knowledge, but I never expected the problem was this bad,” he said. “In order to attend any seminar or cultural event, people need to take a private car to reach the centre of the governorate. There is no transportation available after sunset, which makes it impossible for children to take part in cultural activities that could develop their personalities”.
After that incident, Elsayed decided to try to counteract the cultural ignorance which children suffer from in the countryside by establishing the “Stories Cart”.
(Photo from Facebook)
Elsayed believes that first step to help a child discover their own personality is by developing their reading skills. The teacher decided to introduce children to a new world they wouldn’t find in school books or study groups. He gave them the chance to read stories and comic books.
“My main goal is to bridge the gap between the Ministry of the Culture and the people. The ministry says that they support the people and aim to raise cultural awareness but, eventually, we realise this is just empty words,” he said.
Over the course of a few months, Elsayed collected children books and magazines to build up his library. “Every time I got my daughter a comic book, I would buy some extra books and keep them in my room,” he said.
After collecting almost 900 books, he started visiting the homes of underprivileged children and giving them books to read. In order to motivate them to read, he would tell them stories about famous fairytales from the books he distributed, like Scheherazade and the 1,001 nights.
“At first, people mocked me and my cart. But when they saw the pure happiness and delight on their children’s faces seeing coloured magazines for the first time, they realised that my idea had merit,” he said.
Step by step, the initiative became bigger and more popular in the governorate. Residents started asking for more books as they saw the great effect it had on their children. “With their limited finances, I knew these parents wouldn’t usually support their children to spend money on books or attend any cultural event,” Elsayed explained.
Four other people then joined the initiative to take the cart further across other governorates. Within a year, the team managed to distribute 12,000 books for 12,000 children across Upper Egypt.
“It’s reached a point now that every time I walk out of my house I find children eager to tell me that they’ve finished their books and want more,” he said.
(Photo from Facebook)
The “Stories Cart” is self-funded. Every single book was collected by the four members or from donated books as the initiative does not accept cash donations.
“The Ministry of Culture has thousands of books in storage. We never asked for any money, just books. After months of trying to contact the ministry and receiving no reply, we were eventually sent just 350 books,” Elsayed said.
Even though the ministry spends millions on organising international cultural events, Elsayed considers its donation to the “Stories Cart” contemptible. Old or unused books can help change the lives of thousands of children.
The government says it is constantly fighting terrorism, but they don’t seem to realise that these destructive ideologies are being taught to the children from early age. These underprivileged children spend their days at schools that teach them nothing, and their nights on the streets. Discrimination and intolerance are being rooted into them at early age at the hands of uneducated people.
Yet, when these children found a chance to develop, they clutched at it so hard to escape their unsatisfying lives. We only wanted the government to help us create a better future, Elsayed concluded.
