Recycling School

The Recycling School for Boys

2000 - present

This project was funded by UNESCO, and is now supported by Proctor and Gamble and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. but designed, established and launched by CID Consulting

Objectives:

To provide opportunities for disadvantaged children by educating them about their rights and duties towards their families and community, thereby creating a new generation of civilly responsible youth. 

Significance: 

This school is a model linking the interests of multinational companies to those of the poor in a sustainable alliance that actively contributes to education and poverty alleviation. 

Target group:

Area: Manshiyet Nasr, Cairo

150 male students, aged 9 - 19 years who have either dropped out of government schools or have never enrolled, from impoverished families working in garbage collection with a focus on families that have lost work as a result of privatization.

Methods:

• Teaching young boys through the Montessori Style of teaching which integrates the formal learning process with content specific to recycling and the waste trade (e.g. shampoo bottle collection, recycling, and accounting). The curriculum combines basic education with individualized instruction, self-paced learning and Montessori pedagogy; it includes literacy, health, recreation, computing, practical work experience, environmental protection, and industrial safety standards.

• Technical training through work experience: allowing the boys to practice sorting bottles according to brand name, color, size, and material and then selling the processed plastic back to enterprises in the neighborhood - each child earns a small income from this.

• Involving parents and inviting commitment to their sons and the school as the boys are earning as they learn and can contribute to the family income.

• Using art and drama to help enhance self-expression.

Achievements:

• 76 boys successfully completed three levels of literacy and got the governmental formal certificates. 

• 8 students received certificates in the preparatory stage of the formal education according to studying at home system.

• 12 boys are studying in the grades 1 and 2 in the preparatory formal education and 8 students are studying in the secondary stage.

• 107 boys and 18 girls received certificates in computer software. 

• The reception of various press articles and publicity spots on Egyptian international television and radio.

• 87 mothers and sisters of the school students, participated in the women club in the school and got a lot of awareness seminars in primary health care, reproductive health, women rights, and various of social and cultural subjects.

• 375 boys, sisters, and mothers got vaccinations against Tetanus virus.

• 420 boys, sisters and mothers have participated in 125 summer camps, field visits, and sports days have been organized by the school.  

• The internationally acclaimed documentary film Garbage Dreams features three students from the Recycling School. Garbage Dreams has been featured on PBS and former Vice President of the United States AL Gore awarded the film the “Reel Current Award” for 2009.