Cairo Hackerspace: The Infinite Rollercoaster!
The Cairo Hackerspace is grateful for the many messages of concern and offers of help it has received in the past many months. Given the ongoing ups-and-downs of running our space in the current climate in Egypt, we appreciate all of your kind and motivating words. In November 2015, we were working on an ambitious project to build a mobile makerspace which would visit schools around Egypt. The plan was to spread the idea of making and hacking to kids, who benefit the most from learning how to use their hands and minds to solve problems creatively at an early age. The larger goal of this project was to address the need for better alternative technical and technological education in our country, which we had hoped to provide with traveling workshops. However, on 28 December 2015, our space was shut down after the governmental interagency raid on our host, the Townhouse Gallery. The motivations for this raid have still not been fully clarified, but ultimately resulted in the indefinite sealing of all Townhouse property, including the studio housing the Cairo Hackerspace. We began to receive a great outpouring of support at this juncture, although we were not able to accept these generous financial offers, given the current legal restrictions on foreign funding in Egypt. After about two months, on February 15, 2016, the Townhouse partially reopened under strict conditions that it comply with new procedures required by the government. The Townhouse staff was allowed to access the space although programming did not resume. We were thankful to return to our residence in order to access the tools and space we had desperately needed to work on the mobile makerspace project. Around this time, we were able to purchase a small bus and begin repurposing and outfitting it to transform into a fully-equipped makerspace. These plans were halted again by the sudden partial collapse of the southeast portion of the Townhouse building on April 6, 2016. Thankfully, no one was hurt at this time. In the confusion immediately following the collapse, the Cairo Hackerspace was originally thought to be part of the damaged space. It became clear by the following day that while our space did not collapse, the building would either fall imminently or be demolished by the government. On April 9, a sudden demolition order was given on the historic Townhouse building, which also includes residential units and other businesses. The order was disputed by all tenants of the building and resulted in their confrontation with municipal authorities. Given that the order was likely to be carried out by the next day, Townhouse, other building residents and business-owners, and many volunteers moved out the contents of the entire building as quickly as possible. Thankfully building residents were able to save their possessions, and we too were able to access our space and save all of our machines and projects. By April 10, it seemed that the demolition order was postponed by the deputy governor of Cairo. Yet by the next morning, April 11, state security forces suddenly surrounded the Townhouse property and the aggressive dismantling of the building began. Another stand-off occurred between the unarmed residents of the space and the armed police while destruction of windows and interior spaces were witnessed and heard by locals . Finally on April 13, a last stay order was issued on demolition of the building and it was declared safe. The future of this 19th-century historical building now remains in its restoration as a heritage site, which is a designation that was pursued by Townhouse and other building tenants. At the end of the day, the most important news is that all civilians involved in this process remain safe. In the midst of this chaos, the Cairo Hackerspace has again received no small amount of support from both the local community and the global makerspace/hackerspace communities. While we lost our space in this building, we truly feel grateful to Townhouse director William Wells and the Townhouse staff for their generosity as our hosts since the summer of 2014. We received many kind hosting offers from our local friends and we will be moving to a temporary space soon. Our many international hacker/maker friends also encouraged us to start a crowdfunding campaign to pump new energy into our mobile makerspace project, but again are limited given the restrictions on foreign funding in Egypt. We are encouraged by your warmth and understanding. We will continue doing what we do best - hacking the situation. Our goal is still to bolster our local maker community by bringing alternative education to kids, whose curiosity and creative potential continue to inspire us towards a better future. Look out for our work in the coming months!