Fekra Cultural Center

The Fekra Cultural Center is the joining together of artists from around the world with the culture and traditions of Upper Egypt. The Fekra Cultural Center supports those artists in their endeavors and promotes a cultural exchange with the local people.

The Fekra Cultural Center organizes artistic events and workshops and facilitates an international cultural exchange.

Main Activity:

Seminars, art and environmental workshops, and performances

Ongoing projects

The Heissa Project aims to economically empower the women of Heissa Island. The island's (and Aswan's) main source of income, tourism, was severely affected after the January 25th Revolution. Many of the islanders depended primarily on tourism. The community service official sought to highlight the importance of finding ways to generate income for the islanders that didn't rely on tourism. The proposed idea was to teach women to make copper jewelry and enable women to own their own small businesses. Each trainee was given the tools and materials to start her own project. This was in 2014. Over the past three years, many workshops have been helped the women develop their skills and a sustainable workshop area has been set up at Fekra with the tools needed to make the jewellery. Over the past years, the center has provided opportunities for former trainees to market and sell their products in the center or at various exhibition. Partnerships with different institutions were also made, and beads and leather were also introduced and incorporated into the products.

Past projects

• Held several training workshops to help women improve the quality of their products and to promote the importance of preserving local heritage and the environment through designs inspired by the surrounding environment and that are different than their counterparts in the market. This was done in partnership with AFS Egypt Volunteers.
• workshop was held to teach girls to make traditional handcrafts as a means of preserving this heritage and preventing it from being forgotten. The workshop also sought to improve the quality of the products in order to improve their chances of being marketed and generating a sustainable income. Trainers from different regions were hired to teach trainees how to make traditional handicrafts, such as basket-weaving using palm fronds and beading using beads, string, and copper wire to make different accessories.
• A workshop was held to teach young women how to crochet and make beaded accessories inspired by the ancient Nubian heritage of ​​Mount Shisha and Izbat al-Shalal. An open day was held afterward to exhibit and market the finished products and to network with other women, in and outside Aswan, who were interested in these types of products.
• Some of the trainees were invited to participate in the Nile Seed Camp in order to give them the opportunity to interact and exchange knowledge with other participants, help them create partnerships that could help them market their traditional handicrafts, and increase their self-confidence and their ability to deal with and open up to different cultures.

Future projects

Training girls and women to work as self-study instructors

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