The staff thought it was very vital that the Farafra community don’t see the participants as the group of foreign experts coming to fix everything, but rather as concerned citizens of the world who came all this way to learn about Farafra and help out.
Farafra giving participants
On the first days of workshops, the IPP Participants split into groups and attended several workshops given by the Farafra community:
– A workshop with Farafra local Mohamed Reda, on the history of Farafra and origin of the people here
– A workshop on carpentry to make a door for the Qasr El Farafra
– A workshop with Hayat the NGO in Farafra that works with local women on preserving the handicrafts of Farafra
– A workshop at local artist, Badr’s Museum where participants learned how to make sand paintings
– A visit to the hospital of Farafra and meeting with the doctors, nurses and hospital management
After everyone returned from the parallel workshops we went as a group with some members of the partner organisation to our lovely host Beshir’s farm. We learned how bread is made, milked cows, took walks around the field and had another fantastic meal prepared by Beshir’s family.
Participants giving Farafra
As a participants group we thought and talked a lot about what we could offer Farafra. We had already had a night at our house with the women of Farafra where we learned how to make bread and taught them how to make different dips from our countries. During one afternoon in our last week in Farafra we decided to go to the local youth center three parallel workshops for the children and youth of Farafra. We started with a few CISV activities. The kids learned Ulele, Ba NaNa and Look up Look down. Then they had a choice between a dance work shop for girls, an arts and crafts workshop and a photography workshop. Each of the workshops was well attended and the children’s work was displayed at our Celebration of Successes Exhibit on the day before we left Farafra.
IPP Farafra 