{"id":308554,"date":"2022-03-14T11:14:17","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=308554"},"modified":"2022-03-15T10:36:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T13:36:56","slug":"three-brazilian-students-doing-volunteer-work-in-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/three-brazilian-students-doing-volunteer-work-in-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Brazilian students doing volunteer work in Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Three Brazilians participated in a volunteer work interchange program in Cairo, Egypt<\/strong>, early this year held by AIESEC<\/strong>, an international non-profit aiming to foster both personal and professional growth of young students. Leandro Alexandre studies Architecture, Thiago Gomes studies Software Engineering, and Ramon Santana studies Product Engineering. The three of them participated in a volunteer interchange for 45 days starting January 1st<\/sup>. In an interview with ANBA, they shared a little of their experiences.<\/p>\n

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Leandro Alexandre with the Nilo River in the background<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leandro Alexandre <\/strong>is 23 years old and participated in a project involving architecture and sustainability and worked primarily with Islamic architecture<\/strong> during his interchange. He studies Architecture in the Anhembi Morumbi University in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project delved into the Islamic architecture that developed after the 6th<\/sup> century in Cairo and went far beyond what I had learned in my History classes. It also fostered heritage education, showing that Egypt has so much more to explore beyond the pyramids,\u201d Alexandre said.<\/p>\n

He led outdoors tours together with an Egyptian coordinator where he talked about the history of the buildings, how the city developed and the future and restoration projects. \u201cIn addition to getting to know the city and the architecture, I learned about traditional practices and the project aimed to raise awareness on the importance of that place,\u201d he said. Tourists came from countries like Sweeden and the United States.<\/p>\n

Leandro Alexandre said that he\u2019ll create maps and graphic materials like booklets and sketches about the Islamic architecture, showing its main features. He also has a sustainability project examining S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s Pinheiros River and Cairo\u2019s Nilo River.<\/p>\n

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Mashrabiya seen from the inside in the House of the Egyptian Architecture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting to think that many features from the Islamic architecture have been added to the Brazilian architecture, such as the mashrabiya<\/strong>, a type of projecting oriel window enclosed with carved wood latticework,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The mashrabiya is found in mosques and traditional houses of the Ottoman period. In Brazil, they\u2019re known as cobog\u00f3s<\/strong>, made of concrete and ceramic. He gave the example of the Cais do Sert\u00e3o Museum in Recife.<\/p>\n

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A building with mashrabiya in Cairo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alexandre talked about the importance of heritage education<\/strong> and how people that carry out this work should be appreciated. \u201cThis preserves culture, jobs, everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Egypt was the first Arab country Alexandre has ever visited. \u201cIt was a tremendous cultural shock, as the way they see and experience the city is very different, which is very rich. People were very warm; when they found out I was Brazilian, they lived for it \u2013 some people even stopped us to take a picture,\u201d he said. The student aims to pursues a master\u2019s degree and a PhD in heritage and environment.<\/p>\n

Thiago Gomes<\/strong> (in the forefront of the cover picture<\/em>) is 21 and studies Software Engineering in the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC) Minas in Belo Horizonte. He worked in Downtown Cairo as an AIESEC<\/a> global volunteers, where he taught computing and technology<\/strong> for refugee<\/strong> children and gave English conversation classes for refugee<\/strong> adults. This was his first plane trip and the first time he left Brazil. He chose Egypt as it\u2019s very different from Brazil, with another religion and language, and for being in another continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very rewarding to know that I\u2019m helping people through knowledge,\u201d Gomes said. In the English conversation classes, he shared information on technology, labor market, opportunities and areas of expertise. \u201cThe field has grown a lot with the pandemic, and people are greatly interested,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Thiago Gomes with children in class<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the children, he had the chance to give technology introduction classes. \u201cWe must remember that they had never come in contact with computers, so it was crucial to show them how important this knowledge is so that they can know the basics,\u201d he said. The classes were challenging and featured some barriers like language, as many children didn\u2019t speak English. Gomes taught them how to turn on a computer, use a keyboard and a mouse, and he showed them how to use Windows and Word. Most refugees came from Syria and South Sudan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Egyptian people is very joyous, and they have a way of being very similar to ours. They\u2019re very friendly to foreigners, and very fraternal and affectional between them. They also love football, and they use to watch it in coffeeshops that are similar to our bars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The student had worked with refugee people in Brazil before, giving Portuguese classes to Venezuelan refugees in S\u00e3o Paulo. Gomes said he felt very safe in Egypt, and that he enjoyed the cultural shock. He is supposed to graduate in 2023 and plans o starting his own software development agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ramon Santana<\/strong> is 26 years old and is studying Product Engineering in the Federal University of Esp\u00edrito Santo. This was his first plane trip, and he said he chose Egypt for being the most different culture as possible. His volunteer work in Cairo was focused on environmental sustainability<\/strong>, such as recycling materials and product sales.<\/p>\n

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Ramon Santana and the Egyptian women of the recycling project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He said that the project used rice straw<\/strong>, a waste from rice farming in Egypt, to create paper and manufacture different types of notebooks and picture frames. \u201cWe cooked the rice straw and chopped it; it was a whole process to turn it into paper,\u201d he said. The notebooks were sold and donated. The project also made paper bags from books that would be thrown away. Two Egyptian women coordinated the project and produced the objects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe this type of project is extremely necessary; the environmental awareness part is fundamental. Cairo is still not up to date in environmental and sustainability issues, and this project is a starting point for an awareness that has grown in Egypt, and I really enjoyed being part of this. It\u2019s important to make this type of action to spread knowledge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said he felt welcomed by the Arab country and that the Egyptians were welcoming. \u201cI had never left my country, and the Egyptians seems to really like Brazilian people. I felt very safe, and I visited very beautiful tourist attractions like the pyramids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The AIESEC volunteer interchange program offers an allowance for the students to stay in accredited hostels. The plane ticket and subsistence are paid by the students.<\/p>\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Leandro Alexandre, Thiago Gomes and Ramon Santana joined an AIESEC interchange program earlier this year. They shared their experiences with ANBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":308452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,3066,92,101],"tags":[9803,29401,10398,30802,29402,4694,17901,26760,29400,29396,29403,29397,29404,31377,5884,1902,14868,29398,594,28712,21095,29405,29399],"class_list":{"0":"post-308554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"category-society","9":"category-special-reports","10":"category-tourism","11":"tag-egypt-en","12":"tag-aiesec-en","13":"tag-cairo-en","14":"tag-cairo-en-2","15":"tag-cobogos-en","16":"tag-computing","17":"tag-egito-en","18":"tag-egito-en-2","19":"tag-global-volunteers","20":"tag-islamic-architecture","21":"tag-leandro-alexandre-en","22":"tag-mashrabiya","23":"tag-ramon-santana-en","24":"tag-reciclagem-en","25":"tag-recycling","26":"tag-refugees","27":"tag-refugiados-en","28":"tag-rice-straw","29":"tag-technology","30":"tag-tecnologia-en-2","31":"tag-tecnologia-en","32":"tag-thiago-gomes-en","33":"tag-volunteer-work"},"wps_subtitle":"Leandro Alexandre, Thiago Gomes and Ramon Santana joined an AIESEC interchange program earlier this year. They shared their experiences with ANBA.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}