CASAR students Academic Trip to Banati Foundation (NGO for homeless girls)

Yasmeen El-Ghazaly, Adjunct Professor escorted undergraduate class taking a course under the Prince Alwaleed Center for American Studies & Research (CASAR) at the School of GAPP to the Banati Foundation - a shelter and rehabilitation facility for mainly girls with no homes. This entire facility is fully established through the enormous generous efforts of a large family under the leadership of Hanna Abulghar as the Chairperson and Founder of Banati.  The visit concludes an integral theme in the taught course AMST 1099 ‘Exploring Feminist Perspectives in Egypt and the US’ which discusses the global role of NGOs in raising awareness about all aspects of feminism and how the different NGOs in Egypt particularly work to help end violence against women. This trip provided essential much-needed insights to the experiences of other Egyptian children, especially girls struggling to simply protect themselves, find safe homes or basic needs of survival and their siblings who are forced to live in precarious and compromising environments. Banati Foundation not only provides basic living conditions to the 170 children (35 boys and 135 girls) who need shelter, it's also part of a complete rehabilitation cycle teaching children everything needed from the ages of 6-18 years old and on an exceptional basis until 21 years of age. The main aim of the foundation is to ‘graduate’ these children with university degrees, a craft of any sort of a job to ensure financial stability and independence.

The foundation caters to every imaginable aspect of any given child’s life like education, sports, scouts
club, gardening, cooking, art, dance, music, legal, psychological & medical services so they can attempt
to move on independently and most importantly safely after they leave the shelter.

The class was taken on an exclusive tour of the entire facility to witness the services given to the children, and meet the teachers responsible as well as other amazingly dedicated staff members who explained the full rehabilitation process offered to the children. The class was highly impressed by the cleanliness and high standard of this facility as well as the dedication of the team working there to aid these children to the best of their ability.

The Prince Alwaleed Center for American Studies and Research at the School of GAPP is immensely grateful to  Hanna Abulghar for this exclusive unique educational opportunity that certainly raised the awareness of the students to the efforts made by the Egyptian civil society and Egyptian NGOs in this regard.