Dialogue Across Borders

Abduselam Abdella is one of the founders of the Faysal Community School which was established in 2018 and mostly has Eritrean refugee students. The Faysal Community School has been rapidly growing and now has three regular school branches and one technical school. Abduselam is the head of administration and finance and is the director of the Kafr Thazmos branch. Abduselam explains how they deal with students who are unable to pay their school fees and their contacts with Wafidin and various other institutions. They introduced the Egyptian curriculum to enable Eritrean and other graduates to study at an Egyptian university. They have ambitions to establish an international school. Abduselam Abdella has read this transcript and approved this for publication in Dialogue Across Borders. See also the interview with Yasser Abdela of the same school.

Yassir Abdela is an Eritrean refugee in Egypt and is one of the three founders of this school. This school is remarkable because it teaches the Sudanese curriculum to mostly Eritreans. Eritreans cannot enter an Egyptian university with a Sudanese high school diploma and thus they added the Egyptian curriculum to their package. The costs of teaching the Egyptian curriculum are higher and this excludes students who cannot afford this. The transcript of this interview was presented to Yassir who agreed to the text for publication in Dialogue Across Borders. See also the interview with Abduselam Abdella of the same school.

Silvio Amum, director of the Knowledge Educational Center for refugees agreed to an interview but it wasn’t an easy interview since Silvio did not know English and had asked a teacher from his English department whose English was hard to understand. The learning center teaches both the Sudanese and South Sudanese curricula. For the subjects in English they follow the South Sudanese and Sudanese curricula, but for Arabic, they only follow the Sudanese curriculum. The salaries of teachers are insufficient and sometimes payment to teachers is delayed if parents do not pay in time. Silvio received the transcript of this interview but did not respond. Júlia is fully responsible for the accuracy of this text.

Simon Tongnyiik is a South Sudanese migrant who belongs to the Seventh Day Adventist Church and studied sociology at Cairo University. He is a former teacher in Matariya and in 2017 opened his own learning center called Al Shorouk, it has two branches, one in Maadi and one in Ain-Shams. They teach the South Sudanese curriculum. Simon played a major role in bringing the Matariya school under the auspices of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. See the interview with Nichola Kenybo, the principal of El-Matariya Adventist Sudanese School. Júlia Arenós Karsten provided him with a transcript of this interview. He did not respond and we presume he agreed to this text.

Nichola Kenybo is South Sudanese and is the principal of El-Matariya Adventist Sudanese School. They teach the Sudanese curriculum in English. The school was founded as a community school or learning center in 2003. They were unable to make ends meet and agreed in 2019 to be taken over by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Egypt. The church provides the building at no cost. The church also employs teachers and staff. Nichola Kenybo has read the transcript, approved this, and agreed to placement in Dialogue Across Borders.

Kejiel Matiok Akec Tinke is 35 years old and is from South Sudan. He studied education in Juba and came to Cairo in 2016 as a refugee when the civil war raged in South Sudan. He is both a teacher in Little Step but also its director. Little Step uses the Sudanese curriculum but is planning to shift the curriculum next year to the South Sudanese curriculum. The main motivation is the costs of the Sudanese exam. Kejiel has read the transcript, approved this, and agreed to placement in Dialogue Across Borders.