Colors
of Cairo
BY JULIE NORMAN (LEWIS HINE FELLOW, 2002–2003)
INTRODUCTION
BY JULIE NORMAN
From September 2002 through June 2003, I served as a Lewis Hine
Documentary Fellow with Children
of the Nile, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Cairo,
Egypt. As a Hine Fellow, my primary responsibility was to work as
a documentary assistant with the NGO, helping them use photography,
writing, video, and other mediums to document their work with children.
Children of
the Nile focuses on early childhood development in needy communities
in Egypt. The organization works with local communities to set up
preschools, kindergartens, and childcare facilities for poor, working
families. Children
of the Nile also develops lesson plans for the schools, publishes
a newsletter, and provides trainings and workshops for teachers,
childcare providers, and community leaders.
As part of my work for Children
of the Nile, I prepared and taught a lesson each day for the
students in one of the kindergartens in Imbaba, a neighborhood on
the outskirts of Cairo. In February 2003, I developed a two-week
drawing unit with the children. Each day I brought crayons and fresh
paper, and I asked the children to draw on a different topic for
ten consecutive days. We started with person-focused topics like
“Myself,” “My Friends,” and “My Family”;
then expanded to larger setting-focused topics including “My
Kindergarten,” “My Neighborhood,” and “My
Country”; and concluded with more abstract subjects like “My
Traditions,” “My Future,” “My Wishes,”
and “My Dreams.”
I approached the project with two main goals. Primarily, I wanted
to engage the children in the creative process of artistic expression.
They were seldom encouraged to use their imaginations and draw freely,
and I wanted them to experience that process. To be sure, the following
drawings illustrate how the children’s work developed from
the first day to the last, as they gradually embraced the creative
process and became increasingly free and expressive.
My second goal was to engage the children in documenting themselves
and their surroundings. While my photographs and writings provided
documentation from my point of view, I wanted to capture Imbaba
through the children’s eyes and allow them to share their
unique perspectives. Indeed, the ways in which the children portrayed
their school, neighborhood, and environment differed significantly
from the images that I created. In this way, the drawing project
evokes the perspectives and voices of the Children
of the Nile.
banner image:
Kindergarten children in the Imbaba neighborhood
of Cairo, Egypt, participate in a two-week drawing exercise facilitated
by Hine Fellow Julie Norman. Photograph by Julie Norman.
