Who ever heard of a medical doctor attending patients in the midst of one of the largest garbage collection areas in Egypt or perhaps in the world?  Is this man a garbage collector or a doctor?   He is both! 

Dr. Wahid Mounir has a clinic-cum-social centre right inside the ‘village’ or ‘estate’ of no man’s land on the outskirts of Cairo .  The narrow winding way or road to his “Centre” is teaming with people, men, women and children, all involved in the “business of collecting garbage”!  In the very centre of this hive of industry is a thriving clinic and a pre-school for young children operated by Dr. Wahid.

How did all of this come to be and who are the people involved?  Originally the poor people from Upper Egypt settled there when they came as wanderers seeking work and money in the city.  Unfortunately these wanderers from Upper Egypt could not find employment in this expanding city until one enterprising man among them noted that the people in the rows and rows of tenement buildings being erected on the outskirts of the city had no means of disposing of their rubbish. So this man, followed by others, invented their own work as garbage collectors.

They were themselves living beside the heaps of rubbish dumped by the residents. Their homes were made from “stuff” taken from the heaps—pieces of tin, cardboard, scrap wood—anything and everything.  At that time Cairo did not have a system of rubbish collection so the work for the wanderers increased and multiplied and grew into a home-based recycling system. Some people collected, some sorted.  Those who had initiated the scheme became the businessmen who sold the sorted material to business recyclers and organised their different teams of collectors and sorters into a profitable system.   So on the outskirts of Cairo , an embarrassment to the government, is this garbage settlement called Mokattem.  This is the workplace of Dr. Wahid, the setting for his school and clinic, St. Simon Center .

St. Simon Center was started by Bishop Serapion in 1995 to give employment to women in the centre of the garbage-pickers area.  A room was set aside for young children to simply play and also to learn some very basic skills.  Local women were hired.  Shortly after establishing the Center Bishop Serapion left for Los Angeles .   Dr. Wahid was left to carry on this very worthwhile project on his own. As a newly-graduated doctor, he heard the call to serve the poor and ever since has continued to serve not only in Mokattem but also in other neglected areas.  Being a dreamer, he came up with a wonderful scheme.  He calls it the “Zero Project”.  This means that what other people have discarded he can use to give women employment by sorting and recycling “the zeros”.  He is able to pay them from the proceeds.

The settlement is a maze of narrow streets and alleyways, just the width of the small van Dr. Wahid drives, manoeuvring his way amidst the bedlam caused by bales of unsorted rubbish of all descriptions, people galore, donkey carts, rooting pigs—just to mention a few of the obstacles.   ‘Houses’, each one billowing rubbish from the doors and open slots which were windows, are stacked tightly on each side of the narrow streets.  Rubbish is everywhere, on the roads, out the ‘windows’ even on the roofs.

The well-built cement-brick compound where the doctor organises his services to the community is like an oasis in the middle of bedlam.  Teams of women from the compound come to sort the stuff collected from many schools around Cairo .  They keep what is usable for families such as clothing, cooking utensils etc.  There are sewing machines to mend and also to re-design and sell at an affordable price within the community.  Volunteers are running a pre-school for the neediest of little ones.  All of this is not to make money, but to pay small stipends for those who work there.

That's where we, Missionary Franciscan Sisters living in Cairo , got involved!  Three years ago, Dr. Wahid approached Sr. Josephine Rush at St Clare’s College in Cairo about the possibility of our providing “zeros” (rubbish such as cans, bottles etc.) that can be recycled for his project.  Having been praying for an outreach to the poor we felt this was our answer.  From then on we began collecting all our “zeros” and those of the Saturday and Sunday Mass-goers as well as some of our students and their families who have shown interest.  We have also managed to get other schools involved as well as the Vatican and Irish Embassies.  Sisters Veronice Frawley and Margaret Mary O’Shea from Sacred Heart College in Alexandria joined forces with us and have a caption written over the area where they collect the zeros "We don't want your money, we want your Zeros."

          Sister Josephine with Students – St Clare’s        

Last year Sr. Anna Mary Hannon managed to get money for a van from a generous parish in Dublin to facilitate the collection of the “zeros”.    No point in having lots of “zeros” and no means to collect them!  The van is also being used to take the children for short trips outside Garbage City to experience a different world of beauty and clean air just outside the walls of their city.  Channel 4 on English Television recently did a documentary on Garbage City , Cairo .  It was a revelation to many.  Cairo is such a wonderful, beautiful city, full of history so it is hard to believe a place like Mokattem exists.  Yet, in this place, in Mokattem, God’s love shines ever more brilliantly through the lives and commitment of Dr. Wahid Mounir and his many caring volunteers.

A Family in the street of Mokattem