Handicrafts workshop helps women make a living in Cairo's City of the Dead

In Cairo’s famous City of the Dead lies Mishka, a workshop where women living in the historical cemetery learn to turn traditional handicrafts into fashion items for modern tastes.

Founded in 2017 by the Polish-born architect Agnieszka Dobrowolska, the project is one of several she has launched to help residents of the sprawling cemetery established during Egypt's Mamluk era.

Set among the graves and tombs are the homes of people too poor to afford the high cost of real estate in Egypt's congested capital, as well as some of Cairo’s most notable Islamic structures, including a 15th-century mosque built by the Mamluk ruler Sultan Al Ashraf Qaitbay.

“My introduction to the City of the Dead was when I came down on an EU-funded project to restore important monuments in the area,” says Ms Dobrowolska, who has lived in Cairo for decades.

“But what I soon realised was that around all the graves lived about 1.5 million people, most of whom were marginalised and stigmatised. And though my work was supposed to be focused on the monuments, one can’t ignore the people who live around them. Which is why I decided to incorporate the city’s living into our plan.”

Mishka's workshop is in the area around the Sultan Qaitbay mosque where Ms Dobrowolska's programme, Heritage for the Living in the City of the Dead, has established its base. Women from the area are offered three-month courses in turning leather and metal into items such as wallets, handbags, necklaces and bracelets.

Once the women are skilled enough, their work is sold at Miskha’s gallery in the City of the Dead, as well as at affiliated boutiques, galleries and bazaars. A large portion of sales come through online outlets and social media.

The drone and whine of metal-working machinery fills the air around the workshop as women put the finishing touches to pieces of jewellery, which range in price from 250 Egyptian pounds (about $14) to 1,500 pounds.

The gallery, sandwiched between a glassblower's shop and a coffee shop catering to construction workers, has an upmarket vibe that stands out in the neighbourhood of dilapidated, low-slung buildings. Inside, the finished products are laid out in polished, well-lit displays, some on velvet pillows, others hanging from cardboard cut-outs of Cleopatra.

All the profit from the sales goes to the women, which for many provides a significant bump to their household income.

While some of the women start from scratch, others already have the skills but lack the design awareness needed to fashion products that will succeed in the market.

“Before I came here, I made OK jewellery, but my main problem was marketing my products,” says Nihad, 39, who has lived in the City of the Dead for 17 years.

“I didn’t know where to sell them and when I did find places, I would realise that my stuff wasn’t designed to the tastes of the kind of client who I could make a lot of money selling to.”

“It’s great to have someone tell you which designs are in fashion and which are old news. That makes all the difference when it comes to sales.”

Mishka’s designs are made by Ms Dobrowolska and the project’s manager, Heba El Naggar, and are inspired by the area’s Mamluk-era architecture, featuring crescent moons, Arabic calligraphy and the geometric patterns characteristic of Islamic buildings.

“To many Egyptians, the designs on the outside of mosques are a commonplace thing, but when you sit down and study the complexity and attention to detail, you find endless themes to work with,” says Ms El Naggar, who has 15 years of experience in jewellery design.

Although Mishka’s products are gaining popularity among Egyptians, they are more popular with foreign clients, many of whom already have an affinity for Islamic culture.

“Perhaps it is because they didn’t grow up surrounded with these monuments that they appreciate it so much,” Ms El Naggar says.

While Ms Dobrowolska oversees the overall operations, it is Ms El Naggar who works most closely with the women — giving them training in new designs, providing a friendly ear and, sometimes, advice.

“With few work opportunities in the city, many of the women here just stay home. Either because their husbands wouldn’t approve or, because they have children to take care of, leaving the city to find work is not feasible,” she says.

“Affording these women a regular source of income is one of our core missions. What’s better though is that a previously unskilled woman, otherwise unemployable, can come here, learn a new craft and then find work at a factory or another jewellery workshop and continue to support herself.”

Umm Ali, 32, says she lost her nerve when her sister-in-law brought her to the Mishka workshop a year ago, and would have gone home had it not been for encouragement from Ms El Naggar.

“All I kept thinking was that I couldn’t be here, that this was not the right place for someone like me,” she says. “But Heba sat me down and explained that all I had to do was learn step by step and in the end I would get it. She said that it was just all new and that I would get used to it. And I did.”

Umm Ali says life in Cairo’s City of the Dead, where she moved 10 years ago after marriage, is a unique experience.

“Everyone always thinks that living here must be scary because of all the graves and burials that take place, but that’s just an outside perspective,” she says. “In reality, the city is alive and there is a lot that people outside should know about it.”