Jesuit Association Centre

Location: El Minya, Upper Egypt
Director: Father Magdi
Founded: in the mid 1980's

How it all started
El Minya lies about 150 miles south of Cairo, on the River Nile.  It is also known as the ‘Bride of Upper Egypt’ because of its pleasant surroundings.  Unfortunately, El Minya suffers from economic difficulties, and its population of up to 1,000,000 people has the highest rate of unemployment in Upper (Southern) Egypt.

The first Jesuits came to El Minya in 1886.  They bought some land and built a church and house.  In the 1970s, the Jesuits decided to develop the land, to make it useful to the poorer people of the city.  They built workshops and a library, and the rest of the land became public playing fields.  Soon a residential Vocational Training Centre for the physically disabled and a school for children and young adults with a mental disability were added.

Current activities
Today the Jesuit Association Centre runs a variety of projects.  As well as the Special Needs School and the Vocational Training Centre, these include: a school, a day-care centre, a health care centre, adult training centres, literacy classes, and outreach programmes for families in the surrounding villages.

In the rural communities surrounding Minya, disabled people can become very isolated from society and many are outside the government education system because of their disability.  The Vocational Training Centre helps adolescents to become active members of their communities through its rehabilitation programme.  It accommodates up to 40 students, 20 male and 20 female, aged between 12-19 years, on a residential basis from Monday to Thursday.  Because of their disabilities, it is easier for the students to stay at the Centre during the week than to return home each evening.

The Centre teaches vocational skills such as woodwork, gardening and sewing, and also has a literacy programme for those students who are illiterate through a lack of primary schooling.  After each two-year course, students are helped to find a job relating to their studies.

The Jesuit Association also works in close co-operation with the 6th October Centre in another part of the city.  This Centre is responsible for the assessment, development and referral of individuals with a physical disability for training, education or medical assistance.  In the surrounding 200 villages, it is estimated that there are 900 physically disabled people, who, without the Centre, would have no hope for the future.  However, since the Centre opened in 1995, almost 100 people have benefited from its services.