In Old Cairo, residents reconnect with their heritage

In Old Cairo, residents reconnect with their heritage

For most of their lives, children from historic Cairo’s Al-Khalifa district only saw the mausoleums, mosques and madrasa schools that pepper their neighborhood from outside heavy bronze doors. In one of the world’s oldest Islamic cities, communities were becoming increasingly separated from the centuries-old buildings they lived alongside – prompting architect and heritage management expert May Al-Ibrashy to launch a program to “foster a sense of ownership over this heritage”.

Believing a sense of belonging is integral to protecting heritage, her “participatory conservation initiative” has included bringing the young through those once-closed doors. “The first time we opened a heritage monument to children, they were ecstatic,” Ibrashy said. “Every day they had passed in front of this historic site, but had never been allowed inside”.

The Athar Lina initiative, whose name means “the monument is ours” in Arabic, has carried out workshops, tours and summer camps in the Egyptian capital since 2012. After years of slowly earning the neighborhood’s trust with the children’s program – including play dates in the famous ninth-century mosque of Ibn Tulun, one of the oldest in Africa – Athar Lina expanded the workshops to include adults.

In one of the first buildings Athar Lina renovated at the community’s