In the days leading up to Coptic Christmas on Jan. 7, Ezzat Naem, the founder and director of the Spirit of the Youth Association, was preparing gifts of clothing for some of the children of Cairo's Manshiyat Nasr neighborhood. Naem's organization, established in 2004, seeks to educate children from Manshiyat Nasr about how to recycle safely along with reading and mathematics.
A suburb in the hills of Mokattam, in eastern Cairo, Manshiyat Nasr is home to the Zabaleen, the mostly impoverished garbage collectors who recycle much of Cairo’s rubbish.