Travels Winger

St Theresa Orphanage

St Theresa Orphanage

The following information was provided by one of our students from Spain. She is Social Worker and loves working with children.

She recently went to visit a Cairo orphanage called St Theresa, which is located in the suburb of Manshit Naser. Manshit Naser is located below Mukatum, which is a stretch of hills just East of Cairo.

St Theresa is in a small building which appears to have been recently freshly painted. It has one room for the babies, one kitchen, and a big room in which the older children can play.

The centre can house up to as many 20 babies and a high number of small children at any one time. Most children do not have either parent, or have been brought to the centre because their single parent cannot afford to feed them. While there you can help feed the babies or assist with their bathing or the changing of their nappies or just nurse and play with them.

The organization can be very difficult to locate and can take a long time to find on a first visit. You may find it difficult to get a taxi driver to enter the suburb and this may be for any number of reasons, so just be prepared to walk a little way. The suburb is very poor, yet you may notice that it is in close proximity to a fairly wealthy area. It is not uncommon to see people looking through mountains of rubbish searching for items that can be recycled. There were also many goats too that are feeding and living amongst the rubbish.

It was very sad to see children going through the garbage to find whatever they can sell to make a living. Also be prepared for a huge number of flies and the very strong smell from the garbage.

There are caves in the side of the hills of Mukatum. It is there that our student found a church where the children would go to keep cool from the hot Egyptian sun. She says “I met and played children games with 5 young girls and they were so happy. As a thank you for playing with them, the children had brought me a ring. I thought they had found the ring along with some other jewelry in the garbage, but I found out later that they actually purchased the ring with a very small of money they had on them from a man selling jewelry nearby. I found this to be an amazing gesture of love on their part. These children who have very little in life and here they were buying me a gift to thank me for playing with them. To say I was touched would be a huge understatement,”

Nearby, there is a hospital in Mukatum. There are many poor and sick people living there in extreme poverty. Our student met some people from America currently working there to gain some valuable work experience, but also assisting where they could with the children. They lived in a nearby building close to the orphanage. They organize activities for the children, as well as teach them English. They relayed a story of a young woman who recently gave birth and needed to have a caesarean, but unfortunately the baby died.

Our student speaks of another organization based in Morocco where she hopes to work in the future and teach Spanish to the children as they only speak the local Arabic dialect. The organization is called ‘Oxadental Sahara’ and for the summer months it arranges for orphans to live in Spain with families who support them and provide for all their needs.