The Chapel for Europe invites you to the opening of the exhibition “Ragpickers of Moqattam” created by Solidarité-Orient
When: Wednesday, 11 March at 17:00
Where: Chapel for Europe, Rue Van Maerlant, 22-24, 1040 Etterbeek
About the exhibition “Ragpickers of Moqattam”:
In April 2025, several members of the association Solidarité-Orient visited the people involved in various projects set up for and by the ragpickers of Cairo. Among them were Romani Badir, who comes from a family of ragpickers and became an engineer specialising in plastic recycling, who helped set up a nursery school, and Sister Sara, a Coptic Orthodox nun, friend and close collaborator of Sister Emmanuelle, whose work she continues.
From these various encounters and visits, we brought back striking images of the daily lives of the ragpickers of Moqattam, men and women whose destiny is to collect the thousands of tonnes of rubbish thrown onto the streets of the Egyptian capital. They have turned this condition into a source of pride. And it is a great sense of solidarity that unites this community, 98% of whose members are Christian.
We invite you to discover these snapshots of life that depict the harsh reality but also the joy, resilience and faith of the zabbalin (garbage collectors in Arabic), second-class citizens in an Egypt where interfaith dialogue remains a major challenge.
The exhibition will be on display in the Chapel until Tuesday, 24 March, during the Chapel’s opening hours: Monday to Thursday from 12:00 to 14:00. If you would like to visit the exhibition at another time or as a group, please contact welcome@chapelforeurope.eu.