Called to Serve... Along the Nile: Local Hygiene Kit Production, Cairo, Egypt

Hygiene Kits

Clean Hands, Clean Teeth and

Healthy Smiles in a Bag

Soap and towel, tooth brush and toothpaste, a comb and hand washing instructions in a bag – 1,600 hygiene kits will improve the health of over three thousand people. We developed an instruction card to aid in training and remind people how to wash their hands. We also had reusable cloth bags made to put the kits into rather than use plastic Zip Lock bags that add to the garbage pollution of Egypt. There was great interest in the bags and heightened interest in the training.

The bags were made by a community organization that hires the poor to work and trains them in health, crafts and vocational skills.

Hand washing instruction card

Handmade cloth bag for family kit sold to us by single mothers associated with the Community Development Organization

Sister Lindsay and Maha Eweiss, director of the Community Development Organization that made the bags

Thanks to the hospitality of our friends we drink a lot of soft drinks while working

It takes 8 men to pack 2,700 towels into a little Suzuki van.

The suk (market) ally is very small and it makes for a tight squeeze even for a tiny van!

The van just merges with the marketplace and emerges on the other side to enter the equally crowded streets of Cairo to deliver the goods to us for assembly of the hygiene kits.

After shopping, assembling the hygiene kits

Everyone lends a helping hand. Magda is the director of the NGO that provided the volunteers and will distribute 250 kits in Cairo and the Delta

Bright colored towels, combs, bags and service combine to lift everyone’s heart

In a few hours the kits are all assembled and the volunteers have that warm feeling that service, sacrifice and love for others always brings.

Hygiene Training

Training and Distribution

Hygiene kits are now ready, but first we must give hygiene training to the recipients. Magda teaches the students the basics of washing hands… top, bottom, under the nails for 15 seconds and then a good rinse with clean water.

Hand washing demonstration, students watch intently to learn so they can train their family members

Hygiene kit contents are reviewed

Sister Lindsay distributes the kits

Hygiene Kits Assembled and Distributed

in Upper Egypt

Michelle Watkins of the branch offered to help us assemble hygiene kits with the volunteer help of her friends. We met one night and completed 1,100 hygiene kits for individuals and another 35 family size hygiene kits. The kits were boxed and shipped by van to be distributed to villages in the Luxor area of Upper Egypt during a Saif Vision Campaign.