Reflections on childhood, youth and poverty in Egypt
In her two years of ethnographic fieldwork looking at various transnational humanitarian organizations that focused on the care and governance of poor children and youth throughout Egypt, Rania Kassab Sweis, a PhD candidate in anthropology and a fellow at the Clayman Institute, discovered that NGOs and Egyptians often have conflicting priorities in how foreign aid should be spent. Where NGOs focused on the rights of the children, Egyptians focused more on meeting the basic needs of the children such as food, medicine, and education. Rania's research proposed that NGOs expand the definition of children’s human rights work to include rights to basic needs. By doing so, NGOs will be more able to achieve a sustainable impact in the region. Read Rania's report on Gender News from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.