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A silent crisis threatens every Egyptian child. Now, Coptic Orphans will break the silence.

Michael’s least favorite subject in school is computers.” “Why?” asks executive director Nermien Riad. “That sounds like such a fun class, to learn computers.” “I would love to learn computers,” Michael told her, “but our teacher makes us sit and be quiet for the whole class, and tells us not to bother her. I have not yet even seen a computer in that class.” By being the victim of the lack of a teacher’s attention, Michael was fortunate in comparison to other children that Nermien talked to who were the victims of their teacher’s abusive attention.

If she ever had the great luxury of even owning a computer, Samira would not be able to type on it at all because the tendons in her fingers have been ravaged by repeated beatings by her school teacher and her fine motor abilities destroyed. She described verbal and physical abuse that her teacher inflicted upon her, who disciplines with ten lashings on the hand. As she talked, Samira waved her hands in the air as if to shake something off. “The tenth is always the worst, because the teacher hits the hardest of all.”

When we think of the cycle of poverty, we often emphasize what children lack. In fact, the challenges that the children in Egypt face are far greater than getting proper nutrition and adequate shelter. They face injustice everywhere: at school, in society, on the streets, and even in their own homes.

A professor who had conducted surveys of street children emphatically told Nermien: “I would rather kill my child before letting him fall into police custody,” She told a story about a little street girl who was jailed. The guard told the other street boys in the cell with her to “give her a good beating,” so that they could take out her body out in the morning. The girl only survived because the boys felt sorry for her and hid her from the guards behind a door.

Egyptian girls face particularly horrifying injustices. In 1995, the prevalence rate of female genital mutilation in Egypt was around 97%. Ten years later, it is 96.5%. There is still a desperate need for change.

Despite the high prevalence of abuse, a conspicuous silence hangs around the issue of violence and injustice against children in Egypt like a black pall in broad daylight. Our picture of the plight of children in Egypt is entirely too sterile if we believe that basic nutrition and school supplies alone will allow a child to survive and succeed. In the face of endemic injustice, what are children to do? Simply get through these horrible situations with the hope of surviving into the freedom of adulthood? Under the pall of silence, adulthood brings not freedom, but perpetuation of the cycle into a new generation.

Silence is truly not the answer because the tangled webs of injustice that choke all dark corners of a child’s life and environment only grow thicker across generations when we turn the lights off and ignore them.

In the face of this crisis it has become more vital than ever before for Coptic Orphans to continue to push for change. It is essential not merely to drop off crates of food and school supplies in villages, as some conceive relief work, but to have live representatives who serve as highly trained child advocates to meet the needs of each individual child in the Not Alone program, and who come from the grassroots communities that the children are also a part of. This is why it is vital to continue to expand the Valuable Girl Project, to give girls the resources they need not only to succeed in school, but to overcome and even challenge the injustices that keep them from becoming the confident and powerful women that God created them to be. This is why it is vital that Coptic Orphans continues to place its greatest emphasis on empowering the children themselves by connecting them with resources and representatives who can care for and advocate for them, and with mentors who can give young girls the knowledge and courage to become agents of transformation for the next generation.

To meet these needs, Coptic Orphans will expand our campaign to get the word out in the coming year. Over the course of 2007, Coptic Orphans will focus upon abuse and violence, its impact on the children, and what is being done. Coptic Orphans will also seek to expand the reach of our services in 2007 through new and existing partnerships.

Coptic Orphans is breaking the silence. It is now up to you to help us empower this generation in need, so that they may transform the generations to come before it is too late.