Volunteer Opportunities in Egypt

Technical Assistance Programs:

HANDS relies on members of its community to make its programs successful. Some of our programs require the assistance of individuals who have special training and experience. These are especially important for some of our healthcare initiatives.

If you have medical training, please consider volunteering your time with our Medical Mission to Egypt and/or our work with Horus Hospital.

For more information on these volunteer opportunities please contact us.

Training for Egyptian Female Artisans 

In February 2009, several HANDS volunteers that included a designer Michelle Bayer and the members of Design Student Association (DSA) from the University of Texas at Austin traveled 7,000 miles in order to volunteer on a design project with a HANDS partner in Cairo.  After months of preparation, Michelle and her team were in the area of Cairo called Moquattam, observing the weaving, quilting and paper-making skills of a handful of young women in a garbage collectors’ community in Egypt.

These Egyptian artisans train at one of HANDS’ partner organizations, the Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE), which provides literacy classes, vocational training and sources of income to young women who would otherwise make a living by recycling city trash.  The APE focuses on teaching its participants skills that allow them to create marketable products, such as stationary and rugs, out of recycled materials.

Michelle and the other HANDS volunteers organized workshops to teach a wider variety of artistic techniques, including embossing and screen-printing. The workshops aimed to provide young Egyptian craft-makers with a new set of skills intended to grant them greater independence in their artistic production.   Michelle and her team will continue to collaborate with APE on educational programs that will help to expand future options for these young artisans. They also documented their experiences working on this project in a book titled Stability Through Sustainability.

For more information on this volunteer opportunity please contact us.

Volunteer Opportunities in the US

Even if you cannot travel to Egypt, there are many ways to help:

Host a “Crafts of Cairo” Sale in Your Community

The Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE) (Located in Moquattam) is a literacy and job-skills training center for girls and young women from the garbage collector community in Cairo. Women learn to weave, quilt and recycle paper, as well as to read and write, empowering them to support their families and have a voice in their communities. HANDS organizes “Crafts of Cairo” sales of their handicrafts in America, sending the income to APE to support their training programs. Throughout the year, numerous APE sales take place in communities across the US.

A group of volunteers holds a three-day-long sale in New York City every December, which attracts hundreds of people searching for meaningful, thought-provoking gifts for the winter holidays.

Hosting a “Crafts of Cairo” sale is an excellent and fun opportunity for you to promote knowledge of Egypt among Americans. Would you like to organize one in your city, neighborhood or home? Please contact us to learn more.

Lend Your Expertise to HANDS’ Office in Arlington, VA

We are always looking for individuals to help us accomplish our missions more efficiently. If you have any of the skills listed below, please tell us about your interests. You may also download volunteer application form. Please fill the application and send it to HANDS using the form below. We are always looking for people who have the following skills or experience in these areas:

    • Data entry
    • Preparing mailings
    • Accounting
    • Proposal writing
    • IT issues
    • Translation – Arabic/English speakers are needed to help us bridge the language barrier during our exchange events
    • Program support – particularly with the American-Egyptian Dialogue or organizing and hosting special events that promote understanding of the Middle East

To get involved, please download and submit the volunteer interest application, and submit it to HANDS using the form below.


VOLUNTEER APPLICATION


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