Secondary school students from Poing flew to Cairo and visited children, young people and families in a garbage city. And gave them some variety and more than just a smile.
Poing - Playing, learning, laughing with children and young people who know nothing other than their garbage city and giving them a break from the dreary everyday life and poor life - that's what eleven students did together with two teachers from the Poinger Dominik-Brunner-Realschule. For the second time, a small group traveled to Cairo to immerse themselves in the life of a garbage city. In a quarter of the metropolis where people live in and from garbage. Which they sort and recycle.
Poing: Presentation evening provides insights and impressions
At a presentation evening at the secondary school, the ninth graders Max, Markus, Emma, Jule, Sofia, Maja, Valentino, Johanna, Sina and the tenth grader Sude reported on their experiences and impressions and showed pictures on a large screen. The 11th student, Jan, was unfortunately ill.
Sina and Valentina began by explaining to the parents, siblings, grandparents and other interested parties who came to the presentation what a garbage city is. “The people in the houses live upstairs, and all the garbage is on the ground floor.” Jule reported how jewelry is made from empty coffee tabs and showed pictures of a visit to a family in the garbage city.
The students also visited the kindergarten run by the Rubbish City Children association in Cairo. Maja and Emma talked about how they played with the children. “At first they were shy, but they became more and more open and the girls even let us braid their pigtails.” The kindergarten children had great fun blowing soap bubbles with the guests from Poing. They also wrote emails for the children and sent them to their godparents.
Cooperation with an association from the Allgäu
The Allgäu-based association Müllstadtkinder Cairo has been looking after, educating and training children in one of the garbage cities for over 20 years. He arranges sponsorships and tries to offer them some variety. The students from Poing spent three days with 16 children and young people from the garbage town on leisure time in an oasis and at a lake. Places they normally never go because they are too poor. Over the past few months, the secondary school students have raised money for the trip by selling home-baked cakes during the break and also through donations.
At the presentation evening, Sofia and Sedi reported on the trip, showed pictures and a video in which the children and young people tried to teach each other a few words in their respective languages. There was a lot of laughter during the experiments.
Trip to the desert
The students from Poing also had free time and visited, among other things, the pyramids of Cairo, the Al-Hussain Mosque, a rock church and the bazaar of Old Cairo. Markus and Max reported on these activities.
Last but not least, Johanna described her impressions of visiting a hospital for children with cancer and a German school.
(By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Ebersberg newsletter.)
“It’s not just any school trip, it’s a project trip,” said teacher Thomas Reichle at the end. He and teacher Kristina Schuster organized and carried out the trip for the second time, after 2023. In order to become “Poing’s Cultural Sense Ambassador” (the title of the project), interested 9th grade students had to apply to the two teachers. “The prerequisite is that you are open to new cultures and have an interest in social projects,” says Reichle. And character is very important, emphasized Schuster.
The two thanked their parents for their support, not least for giving their children the opportunity to get to know a different culture and a completely different life by paying for the trip.
The students are still in contact with young people from Cairo via WhatsApp and Snapchat, Emma reported. Final word from Valentina: “The trip was a very nice experience and I am glad that I was able to get to know these people.”