Q: Can you please explain to me a little bit your mission as coordinator for the youth project in PSTIC?
A: We are working with youth, especially in senior years 1, 2, and 3. We are currently working with 13 community schools. This is the contract that we currently have. We organize different workshops with the intention to give them a sense of belonging and community while trying to keep them from joining Sudanese gangs. It is mainly prevention. But you know many of the students involved in the workshop are already part of those Sudanese gangs, so maybe those workshops can also work as an incentive to make them drop out of them. Our curriculum includes workshops on different topics such as the relationship of students with their families, the girls with their parents, and their own community, the environment, and also about the future, which are my dreams, are they feasible? How can I reach them? We mainly organize the workshops as group discussions. What is my role? What is their role? We discuss. It is not a lecture. What we mostly discover is that youth feel that they do not have a voice in their community, in their family, and that they do not care about them. We listen to them and their needs because we believe that it is easier to rethink the purpose of the community. For example, many students ask us to meet with community leaders and now I am organizing this.
Q: From your experience with youth, do they perceive teachers in community schools as someone who cares about them and their needs?
A: No, teachers in community schools are not well-trained. Most of them are there as volunteers. And to be a teacher it is not just to stand up and teach. You are supposed to learn many more things. Even more, if you are dealing with refugees who have suffered from trauma, you need to have background knowledge of psychology and social work, because you need to be able to detect that a student is not doing well, that something is happening, and go there, find out without harming even more, as well as give him or her a sustainable and effective solution. Their mind is not the same as that of normal kids, and we need to take this into account.
Q: And what are the consequences of this “lack of love and feeling of belonging” on the refugee youth? How does this affect them at the long term?
A: There are many cases where children live here with their mothers. So most of the time the mother will be out of the home. That means that the child will be around 8 to 10 hours alone. When you are a child growing up surrounded by love your mother is essential. These kids who have suffered from trauma need it even more. This can affect the child brutally in the long term. They feel that they do not have anything to feel attached to. They feel that they do not belong anywhere. What those kids will do is seek this love somewhere else. Later, when those kids are teenagers we observe that they become violent and show bad behaviors. Many of the parents feel guilty, asking themselves what have I done wrong? So the well-being of the parents is also involved here. But the biggest problem is the Sudanese gangs. It is estimated that 85% of all refugee teenagers could be potentially involved in Sudanese gangs because they feel that they are welcome there. They find a safe place in those gangs.
Q: Can you further elaborate on those gangs? Explaining their internal structure, organizations, main actions, agenda, and others?
A: Before 2004 there were gangs but they were not violent, but in 2004 the violence started. Why? Because they became influenced by TV and social media. They copy the American black gangs. They identify with them because they are black, and they copy their lifestyle, even without considering the consequences of such a lifestyle. They copy everything, the name of the gangs, the dressing, the way they walk, the way they talk, the kinds of parties they organize, and their dressing style. You can see someone in a gang dressing exactly the way the gangs in the US do, and they even use the same names. When it comes to the structure, those gangs have a big boss, all of them are under the same umbrella, but then each gang has a sub-boss. So we are saying for example that all the gangs in Maadi are under a big boss, but then the Hadayeq el Maadi gang has its own leader and in Arab el Maadi there is another gang with another leader. But then imagine if they need to move to Ain-Shams. Both gangs from Hadayeq and Al-Arab move together as one single gang under the umbrella of Maadi. The big boss is Sudanese, and their main action is to steal from other refugee students, not Egyptians.
Q: I have heard about refugee kids selling drugs. Is this another consequence of this ‘lack of love and belonging’? Could you further elaborate on this problem?
A: Yes, this is another big problem. We find a large number of youth taking drugs. There are many factors that cause that. First of all, they grew up in the streets as they do not have a safe space. They are surrounded by violence, gangs, and drug dealers. Secondly, drugs function as a means of evasion from all trauma. Or as I have said, they get involved in gangs where they face social pressure to consume it. So the thing is that addiction is a reality among Sudanese youth who mostly get the drugs from drug dealers that are Egyptians. And it is a sort of “zero-sum game.” The Egyptian drug dealers promise them that if they sell drugs they will give them drugs at a lower price. The Egyptian drug dealers want the refugee youth to be the sellers so that the police would not suspect them, and the refugee child accepts this because there is addiction and no money at all.
Q: What is the average age of the child being involved?
A: The average age starts from 16 until 20-something.
Q: Are girls also part of the gangs?
A: Yes, the girls are also part. They are mostly the girlfriends of the guys involved. There are also gender power relations in gangs. I mean the gangs are dominated by males and the females are there just as the girlfriend.
Q: How many members does an average gang have?
A: It depends, for example on one of the locations that we are working with. Each gang has a committee for an area they cover. They communicate through a WhatsApp group, and this committee has the full responsibility and rights of the area and of the members of the gang in that area. They are the ones designing the agenda and the rules, as well as they are the ones that make sure that the rules are respected by the members. So for example imagine that the committee decides that stealing in a specific neighborhood is prohibited, and you as a member of your gang decide to steal anyway, you break the rule of the gang. This is about your honor. The committee will expel you. Your partners and friends from the gang will see you as the one who betrayed and you will feel so much pressure and shame. They may even threaten that you must leave the gang and make you run to another gang in another neighborhood, just run.
Q: Once you enter a new gang in a neighborhood your position in the hierarchy is the lowest one?
A: Gangs know each other, So there is no problem if you go now to the gang in Ain-Shams and tell them, look I have a problem with my gang, can I join you? They will welcome you and your position will depend because let’s say that in the other gang in Maadi you were having a really high position and everyone knew about you, so once you enter the Ain-Shams gang you already have this status and respect.
Q: How many gangs would you identify in Cairo?
A: I would say that there are thousands, I already told you an 85% of the total number of Sudanese refugee youth have very high rates of getting involved. We say that because we observe that youth are influenced by the black gangs in the US. They see them, they copy the way they dress and their behavior. Maybe they do not engage in the violent part, but the possibilities to end up doing so are really high. Especially when they are getting older, because when they are young, maybe their families still control them, but once they become teenagers, the possibility to copy violent behavior increases. One of the famous US gangs that they copy is Tupac, it has its origins in the late 90s.
Q: Do you think they can find a sense of belonging inside a school?
A: Yes, we think the best way to avoid the problem of drugs and gangs is in school. At school, it is easier to encourage youth to have a good relationship with their parents. Most of them feel that they do not have the right to talk with their parents about their problems and concerns. They feel that it is their problem and they are the ones who need to find a solution. Most of the youth do not want to ask for help. But we encourage them to do so.
Q: And what about the relationship with brothers or sisters?
A: You know, most of their brothers are also involved in Sudanese gangs.
Q: Is there a moment when the youth involved in gangs decide to leave?
A: Yes, mostly when they get older and start thinking about settling and getting children, but you know they have already been involved. Their mind and way of doing are influenced by such an environment, and in many cases, this will affect everything, even the way they raise their children. It also depends. In other cases they might realize by themselves the huge consequences that joining a gang has, so they decide on their own to take distance and try to get rid of those connections, maybe asking for psychological assistance. It depends.
Q: What are you doing apart from the workshops?
A: I am a psychosocial coordinator. So I also handle psychological problems. When we give psychological assistance, we always have this gender sensitivity so females will be treated by a female expert.
Q: Who has the responsibility to protect refugee youth outside the school from violence, sexual harassment, and other things?
It is complicated here in Egypt for refugees. Refugee protection is a shared responsibility between Egyptian authorities and the UNHCR. But who has the biggest responsibility for protection? This protection relies on Egyptian forces. They are dealing if there is a fight in the streets, a fight with a landlord. Whatever it is, it is the police. But you know the police does not always take full responsibility, and the UNHCR cannot do anything about it. The UNHCR is a guest organization in Egypt and also does not have police at all. So the security and protection problems that refugees have, remain as they are. The thing is that the government might say that they are taking responsibility for refugees and that when it comes to security matters they treat all of them on an equal footing as Egyptians, but in practice, there are huge differences.
Q: I know that the UNHCR stopped funding learning centers. How do you feel about it? Why do you think the UNHCR did that?
A: Yes, the UNHCR decided not to support the community schools. I am against this decision because I feel that the UNHCR has assumed something because they did not make previous inquiries. I think they should have thought before about everything because if people decide to go to community schools instead of governmental Egyptian schools, it is because of something. They have reasons, and it is the UNHCR’s responsibility to address those reasons. I think that the UNHCR stopped funding because they thought that if funding would stop, learning centers would close, or at least increase their fees, so that would be an incentive for students to go to governmental schools. But you know learning centers have not closed because they do it because of a reason. They have a purpose, and they will find a way to survive, and the same applies to students who will find a way to continue paying school fees because it is important for them to have this space where they do not face racism. It is important that they feel that they belong somewhere. The worse thing is that the UNHCR did not even explain to the learning centers why funding was stopped.
Cutting funding has just made things worse. This makes refugees enter a whole vicious circle of poverty and low-quality education. The principals face more economic problems. They need to pay the rent, the salaries, everything. Schools fees are higher, salaries of the teachers lower, and the students need to pay for their own exams, so in the end what we have is unqualified teachers, many students getting bad results, as well as many students, even if they are prepared, unable to take the Sudanese exams.
Q: Do you agree that some community schools opened as businesses just to make money?
A: To be honest with you, I know that most of the children in community schools struggle with paying school fees, but you know as the principals and the staff are all from the refugee community, they know what it is. So they are really flexible in order to make sure that the kids can continue their studies. I think that the community schools are there because they feel committed to the purpose, and not so much to make money. You know I really think that it is hard to make money from the refugee community that does not have money themselves. Obviously, I think it depends on the school, and there will be sure community schools that are oriented to take money from the refugee families.
Q: Why do you think salaries are so low at community schools?
A: The low salaries are due to the lack of support and funding. Most of the community schools rely only on school fees. From that income, they need to pay their salaries. But some families do not pay school fees as they should be paying them. We observed, for example, teachers not receiving their salaries on time and being two or three months late in payments. Things like that.
Q: What is your opinion about a community school being ruled by the church?
A: I am completely against that. There are only four schools in Cairo that rely on the church. In those schools we find kids from different nationalities and religions studying. But once they are in a religious school, they are somehow forced and pushed, maybe indirectly, to abandon their religious origin.
Q: What is your opinion about the ongoing strategy between the UNHCR and the government of trying to integrate all refugees from all nationalities into the public education system?
A: I was just in a discussion with the UNHCR and some other partners about this issue. When you start something new you need to take into consideration all the different perspectives. So maybe the UNHCR and the government started asking the students, why they do not want to go to the community schools. Then you can maybe detect the main reasons and have some perspectives. This will help you to design a better strategy. I mean objectively, any student would always prefer to go to a public school than a learning center, the space is better, it is not just a flat, there is a playground, there are more facilities, it is cheaper…It makes no sense to design a plan according to the interest and opinion of just experts, you need to introduce the opinion of the community. In the long term, this idea is really good if it is done well. But public education in Egypt is going through a crisis by itself. So for now the community schools are the best option, at least in the short or middle term.
Q: Do you know if prostitution networks are another problem that refugee females face?
A: I know that here in Maadi there is a Sudanese female who started a prostitution business. She recruited other Sudanese refugee females, selling themselves to foreigners, not just Egyptians but also Western foreigners in Digla. I know that those girls are mainly in their twenties. Then I know another prostitution business downtown. But that one is organized between a Sudanese and an Egyptian, so it is a mix of Egyptian and Sudanese females selling themselves. I saw it, the Sudanese females staying in a nightclub with those big men that were from Sudan too. Those girls were prostitutes.
