Jameel House in Cairo alumni and Bayt Yakan partner to deliver winter programme of traditional arts in support of Al-Darb Al-Ahmar community

Alumni of the Jameel House of Traditional Arts in Cairo are collaborating with Bayt Yakan, an arts collective centred around the eponymous traditional house in historic Cairo, to deliver a winter programme of workshops for women and children in the neighbourhood of Al-Darb Al-Ahmar.

The programme is led by Ola Said, co-founder of Bayt Yakan and herself an alumna and now tutor at the Jameel House in Cairo. The workshops will be delivered by Aya Hamada, Omnia Hosni, Amal Mostafa and Reham Wahba, who are also alumni of the Jameel House in Cairo, a collaboration between Community Jameel, The King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts and Egypt’s Cultural Development Fund.

The two-week programme will run from 27 January to 8 February 2024 and will comprise workshops for women and children of junior and advanced levels. The programme is free and open to all, with sessions held at Bayt Yakan. The workshops will include geometric and floral design, calligraphy, ceramics and woodworking. The programme will end with a closing ceremony and exhibition for the participants and their friends and families.  

The winter school aims to provide free, extracurricular opportunities for children from Al-Darb Al-Ahmar to explore the traditional arts and to engage with the rich heritage of historic Cairo. Workshops will draw on the architectural features of the buildings in the neighbourhood and introduce traditional approaches to design and making to participants.

This year’s programme follows a previous collaboration by Jameel House alumni with Bayt Yakan in 2018, and summer programmes for children in Tunis village in Fayoum in 2019, and with Megawra, a creative hub, to support children in Al-Khalifa neighbourhood in historic Cairo in 2017.  

Details of the different workshops and registration are available here. A closing ceremony will be held on 10 February 2024, following the end of the programme. Bayt Yakan is in Al-Darb Al-Ahmar at 3 Haret Hassan Agha, off Souq El Silah Street, near Hammam Bashtak, and 5 minutes’ walk from Sultan Hassan Mosque.