Last March, Nifu Nifa Records crew packed their luggage and headed east, straight to Cairo! The purpose was to meet the team behind Educate Me, the organisation we are collaborating with during this year 2015, and to carry out a music workshop at the school.
Educate Me is located in a neighbourhood outside Cairo, in the area called Giza, close to the famous pyramids. It is a poor area with very limited resources. The Educate Me school lies in a two-floor small and modest building. We arrived early in the morning in order to organise the material and the classroom. The kids would be coming at 9am and we had to have everything ready.
“EDUCATE ME WAS NOW THEIR SCHOOL, AND THEIR OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP LEARNING AND TO BE ABLE TO REACH A BETTER FUTURE”
Sama is a Sound Engineer and music producer and Hassan is a music producer as well. Both are friends and collaborators of Nifu Nifa . Together, they prepared a very educational and participatory music workshop. The kids learnt from the most basic concepts, as the musical notes, to how to make sound samplers or to dub a piece of SpongeBob. A three-hour workshop where they put all their energy and managed to get the kids completely involved while we all had a great time.
Nada Elayat is responsible for out-of-school activities and our contact with the organisation to carry out this workshop. She explained to us that the kids attending were from a different age range and that, for different reasons, they had abandoned the state school. Educate Me was now their school, and their opportunity to keep learning and to be able to reach a better future.
It was a very intense morning. The workshop was a complete success. The kids played, sang, laughed, and, above all, learnt the magic of music. We come back home hoping we have awakened on those kids the passion for music, and with the enthusiasm to keep working hard to make more children able to follow their dreams. There is a long way to go but our strength is now bigger. With the help of our supporters, we know the change is possible.
