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Breaking Inter-generational Poverty in Egypt

February 6, 2015

When taking a closer look at the Egyptian society today it seems that the process of climbing the social ladder became as hard as ever. If we examine Egypt’s recent history, especially in the beginning of the 20th century until the 70’s, one could observe many examples of successful Egyptians who came from poorer backgrounds and managed to breakout the cycle of hardship. Taha Hussein, the blind prominent Egyptian novelist, was born and raised in Minia in Upper Egypt and lived under tough circumstances of poverty and deprivation. Despite those hard conditions, the Egyptian society could give Taha an opportunity to escape destitution for good through education. He continued his education in Cairo at Al-Azhar then moved to Cairo University. After Hussein obtained his MA from the University of Montpellier, he continued his studies and received another PhD at the Sorbonne. One expects that his children and grandchildren are most probably well-off today and for good. Taha Hussein is just one example from the Egyptian history where underprivileged people could infiltrate higher socio-economic classes. Abbas el Akkad, Anis Mansour, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Naguib Mahfouz, Gamal Abd El Nasser, Farouk El…


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