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Projects T Centre for Training and Marketing, Cairo – Egypt
The Egyptian Association for Social and Economic Rights has set up a centre that allows potters from the district of Fustat to use environmentally friendly kilns at the T Centre. Through Alfanar, the Association will also introduce additional services. These include providing training for 30 young potters aged 18-30, both men and women, on innovative and improved techniques in the craft; set up a cooperative marketing unit whereby the potters collectively exhibit, market and sell their products at trade fairs and exhibitions; set up show-room in the district that will allow for marketing of their products on-site; and providing legal assistance and awareness for the potters community as a whole.
One of the organisation’s main purposes is to help organise this informal sector and its labour. Most of these potters find themselves in a legal black hole; unaware of what regulations and criteria they must meet in order to be able to resume their businesses. The project will therefore attempt to register 90 potters from the village in the workers’ federation, thus paving the way for their formal representation as a sector and giving them voice. This is with the aim of creating and organizing the relationship between the potters and relevant government institutions, which is currently almost non-existent. The Association will also create insurance accounts for the potters. Those accounts are necessary for the issuance of work permits and without which workshop owners cannot reopen their workshops. Additionally, these insurance accounts are the only kind of social security available to informal labour. Informality denies them access to government services, leading to their increased marginalization and exclusion from any available social safety nets. The centre charges potters for the use of its kilns, enabling it to cover the rent of the workshop. It will also collect 10% of revenue from product sales to cover part of the project’s running costs. |
Although pottery making is an ancient craft and constitutes an important sector of Egyptian cultural heritage, being part of the informal economy deprives the potters of many rights. Furthermore, the industry, located in the district of Al Fustat in old Cairo, has been negatively affected by Egypt’s new environmental regulation. In 1999, the potters’ workshops were closed down as a result of the environmentally hazardous emissions of their kilns and their workshops not meeting the standards and specifications set by the new regulations. Although the government committed to replacing approximately 350 of these workshops, only a fraction has been delivered to date; the rest are still under construction. As a result, the majority of potters have been deprived of their main source of income. Furthermore, many of those who have new workshops cannot afford installing environmentally friendly kilns and thus are not able to produce pottery in those workshops.