Egypt, Middle East

EGY06 - Light Education Centres

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Key Partnership Information:

• Partnership Ref.: EGY06

• Commenced: 25/03/2022

• Funding Status: Fully Funded

• Partnership Type: Training / Education, Orphans & Vulnerable Children, Evangelism / Church Planting

• Funding Size: $3,000 - $7,999

• Annual Budget: US$ 5,280

• Connected To: EGY01

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Current Partnership Impact:

• 850 families are being assisted

• 1000 children are being supported into schooling

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Other Partnership Information:

• View partnership reports (latest shows first)

• No partnership video available yet

• No funding currently required for partnership

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Partnership Overview

Soul Salvation Church in the city of Assiut is one of the largest, most influential churches in Upper Egypt. It is non-denominational and has many ministries. One of its leaders was the father of the son-in-law of one of our other Egyptian partners, NB. He was an influential leader and well known and respected in the Christian community in Egypt. Under his leadership the church had begun a vocational training centre. In mid-2021, he unfortunately died from COVID-19 and this key man was taken from his role. Fortunately, there is a good team involved in leading the ministry. 

The church operates three education centres located outside the church in two very poor areas, two of them are in adjacent apartments in the suburb of Al-Nazra. The other is in the Al-Arbaeen neighbourhood. 

In these centres they educate and help poor children with their lessons. These programmes are after school tuition centres. The type of children that attend are primary age children who live in the very poor areas of Assiut. The parents of these children are not able to spend money for their education and need help. Because their parents are not educated enough and do not have permanent jobs and because they are largely uneducated themselves, they place little value on education. Often, they send their children to work instead of studying or helping them to study. Because they live in poor areas, their schools have a very low education system and the teachers there are not well qualified. 

In the centres they are assisting the children in three subjects: maths, English and Arabic from grade 1 to grade 9. Currently they are tutoring over 1,000 children at the two centres during the week. They concentrate on giving them the assistance they need in those subjects and also provide them Bible lessons to help them understand how to live well. They also try to meet the parents during the week to help them understand the importance of educating the children and how to interact and communicate with their kids.

They also assist the children with school materials and sometimes clothing as well. 

History of Partnership

BHW's Executive Chairman met NB a number of years ago and continued to follow his ministry. In December 2014 BHW's New Partnership Facilitator visited Egypt and spent time with N and S to research opportunities for partnership. Following this visit, in early 2015 BHW commenced partnership with the Vocational Training Centre (EGY01). During the training the team got to know the students very well and their family circumstances. Many of them, especially the girls, were really struggling. This is an issue in their culture as many of them were going to get married, but they were too poor to fulfil their obligations. They would therefore spend time with the mothers to try and find ways to assist them. The pressure on their families was intense, and they would often get into serious debt because of the marriage. In 2018 we established a separate fund (EGY05) so that more people could be assisted. Following on from this, we have subsequently commenced projects with NB to support refugees (EGY05a), assist drug addicts (EGY05b), and started up a loan programme (EGY05c). 

In early 2022, NB, who had a close association with these people at Soul Salvation Church, approached BHW to see if we would be willing to assist the operation of this vital programme.  

Beneficiaries

The main group of direct beneficiaries are the children who are part of the tutoring programme and their families in the long term. More than 1,000 children at one time are in the programme.  

What We Like About The Partnership

The beneficiaries are the type of people that are our main focus.
The programme is already running so they have taken the initiative.
They have great people leading the programme.
We have a highly trusted, existing partner in place to oversee the operations.  

 

Key People

Leadership Profile

The person who introduced this partnership to us is NB, an existing, highly trusteed partner. 

His son-in-law, PBA, will be the liaison person. It is his father who began this ministry and who was the leader of the Soul Salvation Church that operates the programme. PBA is 31 years old and works as a communication engineer as a full-time job. He says, "my passion is to serve the Lord with all my heart using my talents and time I can give." He has been serving in the media section at church for a long time and serving in Sunday school as well. He is involved in the Sunday worship team playing guitar and sometimes the piano as well. He has been married to NB's daughter since 2015. His wife works as a teacher. 

 

Vision And Annual Strategy

Vision 

The church is investing in its people to see the local Christians be able to become economically self-sustaining. This is a major issue in this country where Christians are a significant minority and an oppressed people. The mission of the Light Education Centres is: Building educated and healthy children’s personalities for a better life.

Strategy

The strategy is based around the three tutoring centres for children to better equip them for their school lessons and give them confidence in their normal studies at school. 

 

Annual Budget

The annual amount sent by BHW is US$5,280 and this will go into a pool of funds for the children's tutoring programmes, the balance of which is raised locally.