Many Egyptian arts and crafts are at risk. During this discussion, our great panelists with their diverse backgrounds will shed the light on some of these crafts, their origins, the challenges they face, and the solutions they see fit.
Rania Salah Seddik, is the founder of GebRaa, an MA holder in Public Policy specialized in Cultural policies, Central European University, Budapest & a BSc holder in Economics, Cairo University. Rania has grown up in Cairo, spent most of her twenties living between Cairo and Los Angeles, and other than that lived in Budapest and Toulouse .Rania has worked extensively in the fields of human development with national & international organizations like Ministry of Supply Egypt, World Food Program, USAID, Doctors without Borders and the Minnesota Population center among others. In recent years before being a full timer at GebRaa, Rania worked as a cultural coordinator with the American research center in Cairo (ARCE) and Marhaba NGO. Rania has a wide interest in volunteering and strong belief in student activities, she volunteered for many organizations both in Cairo and Los Angeles like SIFE (now Enactus) (founder of Cairo university team winning national championship 2011-2015), Rotaract, UNICEF & others for environment, student development, labor rights, homeless children & single mothers, and headed different student activities and organized different alumni activities. Rania also speaks about entrepreneurship and women empowerment in different events with different organizations such as Injaz, AIESEC, Robert Bosch, German chamber in Cairo as well as UNEP and UNDP. Rania has been awarded many scholarships to attend entrepreneurship trainings and events in France, US, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Kenya and Mexico. Rania’s dreams are all centered around agriculture and culture of Egypt and everything that help them flourish as well as kids of Egypt and Africa.
Ikram, born in 1950, husband of Suzanne Wissa Wassef. A practicing architect, his interest lies in hot climate architecture and the knowledge of traditional building methods, that has survived for thousands of years, which still can be of great value today in both its original form or as the basis for new development. Since 1985, Ikram has been working closely with Suzanne on the development and expansion of second generation wool weavers. He has curated many tapestry exhibitions in Egypt, England, Europe and USA. Gave lectures at these institutions.
Khadiga Mofeed is a marketing and business development officer at Fair Trade Egypt. Mofeed has 7 years of experience in the Egyptian handicrafts sector. Through her work she experienced the challenges and opportunities of the Egyptian Handicrafts products.