The Copts are the largest religious minority (numerically) in the Middle East, tracing their history back to the ancient Egyptians and their religious roots to the establishment of an indigenous church in Egypt in the first century. The Copts comprise between 10-15% of Egypt’s population, with most belonging to the Coptic Orthodox Church, though some are part of the Coptic Catholic or Protestant churches. Throughout history, the Copts have experienced both periods of tolerance and targeting, all the while retaining and preserving their cultural heritage across millennia.
The Middle East Culture Conservation Collective contributed to preserving popular Egyptian Coptic intangible cultural heritage through working collaboratively with Refcemi https://refcemi.org/, the Coptic Orthodox Church (CO) and Coptic Apostolic Church (AC) as well as a Coptic developmental NGO. Project partners built the capacity of over 50 young people mostly aged between from 19 to 35 years old living in Minya, Assiut, Sohag, Aswan and Cairo in Egypt. Young people became “heritage gatherers” tasked with documenting their heritage through oral histories, interviews, videos, and audio-files. Another cohort of 20 young people trained as heritage gatherers through a previous grant from the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund supported the new cohort through capacity building, quality control and through acquiring new capacities in video production and editing for the purpose of supporting the dissemination of heritage process. Such heritage was shared with members of their communities through community events and media, and these stories and practices were safeguarded for future generations through inventories and digital archives.
In Egypt, Coptic-related heritage, including Coptic traditions and celebrations, Coptic symbols on people’s homes, Coptic tattoos, Coptic food, song and expressions and proverbs as well as pilgrimages and festivals.
The heritage gatherers were involved in producing a dedicated Facebook page named Mirathna Fi Torathna (“Our Inheritance is in Our Heritage”) to showcase the intangible Coptic heritage collected by heritage gatherers with over 16,000 followers.This platform featured videos derived from the TV show Mirathna Fi Torathna.
Notably, the most viewed videos featured popular songs about making the pilgrimate to the Virgin Mary monastery in el Minya, with one video receiving 434,000 views, another 233,000 views, and a third 223,000 views.
The young people convened almost 500 community sessions creating the space for hundreds of women and men to reflect on those aspects of heritage to be celebrated and those that need to be reconfigured or even abandoned- all in the light of their impact on their perceptions of wellbeing.
A female heritage gatherer (HG), aged 34, from Al-Sarqana Village in Assiut Governorate, Egypt, shared her experience through the River of Life activity.
The exercise was aimed at assessing the HGs’ experience in the project for identifying what they learned and how they feel about it, it also gave them a chance to express their feelings about events, people or other useful components they faced in their journey.
She said:
“At the start of the project, I had many questions and didn’t know much.
“Through workshops, we understood the project and gained skills in photography and conducting interviews.
“I faced many challenges, such as finding a person to talk about magic, and some people refusing to be interviewed, recorded, or photographed.
“I was able to overcome these challenges with the help of my family and friends by choosing the right people and convincing them. [….]
“I struggled to find people willing to talk about the Epiphany, with the support of family and friends, I found people to interview.
“I also contributed to the Epiphany event.” [ for more information on the epiphany event see [Mahnoor we add the links to the epiphany videos that Ramy worked on]