Motamadea: A Rubbish Collector Community in Cairo

On the west side of Cairo, underneath the junction where two of its main roads intersect, there is a whole community living amidst mounds and mounds of rubbish. This area is home to rubbish collectors who hand-recycle the rubbish brought in by donkey-carts from areas in and around Cairo.

Motamadea is one of at least 7 rubbish collector areas in and around Cairo. These "rubbish collectors villages" are home to all kinds of people, businesses and shops. They are dynamic communities made up of hard-working people who have no alternative place to live.

A casual walk through Motamadea reveals the desperate living conditions. People squat on plots of land on which a tiny, substandard ‘house’ is enclosed by roughshod tin fences. Here the recycling takes place and people live amongst the rubbish with their pigs. The lack of access to clean water, ignorance about sanitation and dismal housing conditions makes this area extremely unhealthy and dangerous for the community’s inhabitants.

Many families cannot afford more than a single-room dwelling where parents and children all live together with no privacy. Worse still, the families’ animals (donkeys, goats, chickens, etc. – their means of income) share the same space, contaminating the living area with their waste.

When the community expressed the desire for decent housing to HFH Egypt, they communicated three essential needs: a safe, humane place to live; a separate place to rear their animals; a place to recycle rubbish.

A Habitat for Humanity programme was soon established in Motamadea: residents applied for loans from the local committee, and plans were drawn up. For some this meant new houses; for others, house renovation. For the most part, new homes have been two stories tall, with people living on the first floor and animals and rubbish sectioned off on the ground floor. HFH Egypt also focuses on those most in need first, among them women-headed households.

Through HFH Egypt loans, the inhabitants of Motamadea were able to acquire housing, be proactive in fighting disease and begin spending their money on education, clothing and food for their children.

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