In Egypt, Ranks of Young and Hopeless Are Swelling

Left: “The main problem we have in Egypt from my point of view is education," Mohamed Al-Sehaity, 29 tells VOA. "What you will learn, you will never find in real life. In real life almost you will never find a profession that matches your educational background. You will end up doing anything just to get money.”
Right: Primary school students in Cairo struggle to keep concentration with distractions all around.

Left: "In few month I’m going to join the military. I’m working as a lifter so I can make enough money before attending my service because the salary will not be enough," Ahmed Mahmoud, 18, told VOA. Right: Soldiers at a military check point in Giza, Egypt.

Left: "I’m an engineer. These days I’m attending my three years obligatory military service as an officer," Mohamed Hisham told VOA. "My profession in the military is not my profession in my civilian life. I almost forgot what I have learned in the five years at the engineering faculty.  
Right: The corps of engineers on a mission fixing a damaged irrigating dam in the southern village of Giza El-Saf, Egypt.

Left: "I have been planning to get married for more than five years," confided Hossam from Minya, 29. "Since I finished my obligatory military service duty. I haven’t had a stable job or my own business. I tried to get a loan and a permit to open a kiosk that I can run by myself, but those who have families already got the priority.
Right: Egyptian men apply for loans supported by the Egyptian government to open new small projects from the headquarter of the ministry of social affairs and insurance in Cairo.

Left: "I had my business in electronics and security cameras. One day I found my storage unit burned down," Soma’a, 32, told VOA. "Here in downtown, during the past few years, there were many clashes with fireworks and teargas canisters, and it wasn’t the first time that my place got exposed to fires. Every time we were able to fight the fires, but this time it was late at night.
Right: Protesters react to fireworks during clashes in downtown Cairo.

Left: "I go to agricultural school but I work in recycling and during my days off, I work with building construction to pay for my school fees and help my family. I would like to cultivate a land in the desert," said Ali Hassan Asiute.
Right: Part of the western desert of Egypt.

Left: "In his family's fresh juice shop in Cairo the price of everything is going up, electricity, fruits, sugar and ready-made ice," explained Magdy, 27. "What we used to sell for 1 Egyptian pound like sugar cane juice now costs us 2 Egyptian pounds.
Right: Fruits markets are stagnant due to the rapid rise of prices in Cairo, Egypt.

Left: Mahmoud Youssef 22, who works as a supermarket delivery man in Cairo, holds an automatic gun during his brother’s wedding in the upper Egypt province of Fayoum. “We don’t use these weapons for fights we just use it in weddings and celebrations, it is also a good show off that we have these weapons here, no body will think of initiating problems with us," he told VOA.
Right: A pro Egyptian government shows up holding an automatic weapon in Kerdasa a district in Giza after a police station was attacked by the supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi with RPG an other heavy weapons.

Left: "My name is Bakkar, the main problem for me is the judgmental people, we live in a very conservative society and when anybody specially old people sees me with rings in my ears and eye brows, tattoos on my body they keep wondering, why you are doing this? Why you are wearing that? Old people, they live just to bitch and complain. I just keep doing what I want to do."
Right: An Egyptian girl helps her friend injecting a syringe in a local bar. Faten, the receiver says “Call it drugs, call it pain killer, call it whatever, it's something that makes me feel better.  Sometimes people would complain 'do it in private'  it’s my own body I don’t know how I can be hurting people while I’m doing this. I bought the composers of the dose from the pharmacy,  why they sell it there then? Alcohol also hurts, and some call it medicine as well. Nothing here really makes sense.”

Left: Mohamed Ismael, an accountant in a stock market company says “watching the match in cafes is not like the stadium, since most of the soccer matches are without participating fans and supporters, I have to watch on the cafe.” 
Right: Defendants of Port Said football match massacre where 74 Al-Ahli club fans were killed in early 2012 are seen during their trial in Cairo.