Helping girls feel valued
December 2017For many girls across the Middle East and North Africa, rejection and discrimination are a daily reality. Widely considered of lower status and value than their brothers, their education and opportunities are limited, and their experience of injustice and abuse all too frequent. The season of Advent resounds with the song of Mary, Jesus’s mother, herself a young woman who […]
A mother’s journey to peace
December 2017Egyptian mother, Nahla Faheem, is inspiring Christian parents today as she looks back on her daughters’ short lives and the suicide bombing that stole them from her. One year after the bombing of St Peter and Paul’s Coptic Church in Cairo that left 25 people dead, she spoke to presenter Magda Gad on SAT-7’s Speak Up programme. A pendant containing […]
Candlelight Shines Brightly in Sudan
December 2017A Christian choir asked to perform at an inter-governmental meeting in Sudan in order to promote peace and goodwill have appeared on SAT-7 ARABIC for the second time. Viewers of the first appearance by Sudan’s Candlelight choir deluged the channel with enthusiastic comments, delighted by the multiracial choir’s lilting praises. Keep on Singing producer Andrew Gamal therefore had no hesitation […]
A father’s fight for his autistic son
November 2017Amir struggled to get his autistic son the help he needed. Schools were rejecting him and getting him to learn was painstaking. Yet Amir knew that “God never makes anything bad”. On a recent episode of the SAT-7 show Speak Up, Amir shared how faith and perseverance changed his son’s future. School is a challenge for many parents. The constant […]
Women and Wars
October 2017Supporting women survivors Modern wars, like those in Syria and Iraq, take place, not on battlefields, but in narrow streets and densely populated cities. Airstrikes on buildings, car bombs in markets, snipers on rooftops – these don’t discriminate between fighter and civilian. Over the 20th century the proportion of civilian casualties in war climbed from 5 per cent to 90 […]
Feeding the energy of youth
August 2017Youthful energy, enquiry and potential. These aren’t characteristics that immediately spring to mind when we think of the Arab world. But in a region where one third of the population is aged 15-29 and another is under 15, they reflect the dynamic potential of these countries, if only obstacles like conflict, weak political participation, scant job opportunities, and discrimination didn’t […]
BRIDGING THE EDUCATION GAP
July 2017Once a world leader in medicine, mathematics and science, the Arabic-speaking world today struggles to meet the education, health and societal needs of its citizens. Brutal conflicts have left millions out of school and have increased pressure on host countries that are running shift systems for local and refugee children. But the “education gaps” in the region aren’t only the […]
Why were they killed? Addressing children’s questions and fears
June 2017Terrible events, such as the recent Manchester Arena bombing and the Grenfell Tower inferno in West London, claimed the lives of young and old. How to help children come to terms with such incidents, how to comfort and reassure them is a question many parents will have had to answer. Sadly, similar questions are all-too familiar in parts of the […]