Young people in Cairo have many issues to deal with and in general find it very difficult to gain employment. This Vocational Training Centre enables them to develop skills that will give them an advantage when seeking employment.

The people of this community are rubbish collectors. They pick through the rubbish bins and skips on the streets of Helwan City, take it home and sort it out. They then try to make a living from selling it to recyclers. It is tough work, it is filthy work. Their whole community smells of rubbish. This is where they live, work and die. It is home to thousands of people.

NCEC is a mother church for many small churches in small towns and villages around Cairo. The church has strong relationships with these churches and to support them has set up a social committee and a loan programme. They operate separately and attempt to meet the needs of the poor in these churches.

The Christian communities of Egypt have traditionally been poor, especially in Upper Egypt. Most are daily workers and they usually only get seasonal work. Life is tough for them, made more difficult by the fact that they are an oppressed minority. They have few or no resources to fall back on and the church is their community. This partnership is about developing a loan fund from which people can borrow to start up small enterprises and so lift themselves out of poverty.

There are huge numbers of poor in Cairo. It is a hub for the poor and for countless generations for refugees. They are spread right throughout the city.

There are tens of thousands of refugees in Cairo. They come from around the Middle East and Sudan. Currently NB regularly meets with a group of refugees from Syria and Sudan. They are Muslim families that have no one to turn to on arrival in Egypt.

Among the poor in Cairo are many men who are addicted to various substances. Poverty and despair leads them to become involved in drug taking. This then causes deeper levels of poverty for them and their families and a descent into desperation. A large number of families have been destroyed because of this. These men roam the streets looking for their next fix and live on the streets. They abandon their families and then they too become victims. For every one person brought back from drug dependency up to 10 people are helped.

The Christian people of Upper Egypt are the poorest of the poor. Generally, they really struggle to eke out a living, to educate their children and if an emergency comes, they have nothing to fall back on. SB and her husband come from Upper Egypt and they have many friends and contacts there.

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 including a vocational training centre. The two aspects involved in this partnership are a sewing centre and two education tutoring centres.