Blind Girls Playing in the Egyptian Orchestra

Male: Fourteen-year-old Sammy Mustafa is an accomplished musician,
one of the best in her group at school. Her skills are all the more
remarkable because she’s blind, and so all of her friends. They are
the girl’s school in the Egyptian capital Cairo has formed the
world’s only orchestra’s, the blind people.

Female: My ambition is to show the world that blind people have no
difficulty playing music. They can be good at music or anything

Male: Conductor, Ahmed Avaeleyd knows his pupils can't see him but
nevertheless his hands keep time to the music. He’s a strict teacher
but believes he is also a fan.

Ahmed: Some of the girls look on me as more of a father than their real
fathers. And that comes from being passionate, not from being
tough. They know I have to bring them up to be good.

Male: The orchestra’s success is based on hard work. The girls put in
hours of practice everyday as well as doing normal academic
studies. The strings, percussion and the wind instrument plays
practice simple key until they know the music by heart. To help
them, music sheets are painstakingly translated into Braille.

Female: I get a notebook like this one and then I start copying so that the
girls can learn it by heart.

Male: Amani Mardof is only seven and she’s a newcomer to the school
but many of the other pupils there, she comes from a poor
background. One of them has to pay for their tuition. The school is
supported from private and government donations.

Male: My father read an advertisement in the newspaper about a school
called Light and Hope and I told him I would like to go to it.

Male: The teachers are also blind and some are students here themselves.
They’re in a good position to understand the problems that are
faced by musicians.

Female: For a blind violinist, the movement of the hand is more difficult
than for someone who can see. A sighted person can see where the
bow is going and they can use aids like mirrors.

Male: The main purpose of the school has been to integrate the children
into a society where handicapped people have few rights. Here,
they can also learn skills like carpet weaving and sewing. The girls
are given wages for their work and the revenue from sales helps to
finance the school.

Female: If you have to give this girl the impression that they are not less
than anybody and again this really, they want to prove everybody
that they can do everything.

Male: There are moments of relaxation but most of all the girls anticipate
the time when they can make it to the senior orchestra to be given
the chance to shine and lime up. The Light and Hope Orchestra is
performed in public hundreds of times. The success is taking it on
foreign tours all around the world and under of couples awards.

In the rehearsal room, Ahmed Avaeleyd brings the music to a stop
and reprimands this performance. Meanwhile, in the antique
covers, another child puts in more hours of practice in the hope
that one day she too will be given the opportunity to demonstrate
her skills to a wider audience.