The Plastic Recycling School, funded by UNESCO under the auspices of the Association of Garbage Collectors for Community Development (AGCCD) was inaugurated in December 2001.  Now the project is under the auspices of the Spirit of Youth Association for Environmental Services, which was established in 2004. It targets the children of rubbish collectors in the Mokattam neighbourhood who, for various reasons, lack access to a formal education system.   Sixty children ages between 10 and 14  joined in 2000.  Ninety children now benefit from the program.

The school aims to provide these children with alternative learning opportunities which will facilitate their integration into the new waste management business when they are adults.  It is built on the reality that globalization has put the Mokattam rubbish collecting in direct competition with multinational waste management services against whom they cannot compete.  It is designed to incorporate education, work experience, environmental protection, poverty alleviation and earning to create a matrix where one project improves an impoverished community on many levels.

Network Partners:

1. UNESCO: Egypt office and Egyptian National Commission for Unesco
2. Community and Institutional Development
3. Hope Village Society for street children – HVS
4. Association for Rubbish Collectors’ Community Development – AGCCD
5. Hemaya association, Nuweiba, South Sinai
6. Association for Protection of the Environment – APE
7. Petah Association, El Fayyoum 
8. Khatwa Group for Arts & Crafts
9. Groupe Schneider Electric
10.   Proctor and Gamble
11. Tetrapak
12. Rotary Clubs
13. Volunteers