Draft:May Al-Ibrashy

May al-Ibrashy is an Egyptian architect, heritage conservationist and activist, and academic. Her work uniquely centres on community engagement through heritage conservation, rehabilitation, preservation, and re-signification, most of which has been realised through the Megawra - Built Environment Collective, an NGO based in the Historic Cairo neighbourhood of Al-Kahlifa that she founded in 2012.

Heritage Conservation
May al-Ibrashy's work over the last decade in participatory heritage conservation and community development has been seen "to create a real difference for the, often marginalised, communities living in Cairo’s historic centre... creating a new sense of hope and pride for the communities she works with." Her efforts have been locally and internationally recognised, receiving the Prince Claus Fund Award in 2022.

Athar Lina
Al-Ibrashy was able to launch Athar Lina (this monument is ours), a joint initiative between Megawra, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, and the Cairo Governorate, to strengthen the relationship between people and their heritage through different activities in Historic Cairo. The project has focused on Al-Khalifa neighbourhood, which the initiative considers "a special neighbourhood because it has heritage from several historic eras... the Fatimid, the Mamluk, and the Ayyubid."

Conservation
The initiative has succeeded in the conservation of five major buildings in Historic Cairo, since 2012.

Al-Imam Al-Shafi’i Mosque (2016-2021), a 13th-century building honouring the founder of one of the four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence: Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Idris Al Shafi’i. The mausoleum is considered one of the most important Islamic monuments in Egypt, according to the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, because it has an ambitious wooden dome considered the largest in Egypt. It is also one of the few remaining Ayyubid buildings and includes rare examples of Ayyubid stucco decoration and woodwork.

Other notable buildings the initiative has helped restore are the domes of the Shajar al-Durr mausoleum, honouring the 13th century female ruler of Egypt, the 12th century Mashhad of Sayyida Ruqayya, a shrine to a female patron saint and daughter of the fourth Islamic Caliph, as well as the mausoleums of Muhammad al-Ja'fari and Sayyida ‘Atika.

Local education initiatives
As part of its long-term local community-based approach to heritage management and conservation, the Athar Lina project initiated a number of heritage education workshops and summer schools for children and women in the neighbourhood of Al-Khalifa. The schools focused on teaching basic literacy and arithmetic, sometimes by integrating heritage terms and concepts, with the belief that if they understand the importance of their monuments, they are more likely to take care of them.

Local community services and activism
As part of al-Ibrashy's concept of wholistic heritage management that involves the community, Athar Lina has worked on advocating for better local services in the deprived neighbourhood, as well as upgrading some itself. It has proposed a comprehensive participatory development plan for Al-Hattaba, a neglected historic working-class quarter situated in one of the corners of the Cairo citadel, and succeeded in halting its demolition. Athar Lina investigated the problem of rising groundwater affecting both residential buildings and the monuments, advocating local authorities to fix the problem, leading to the Ministry of Housing commissioning a study, and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the Cairo governorate are now acknowledging this as a major issue.

The initiative has also helped increase public spaces in al-Khalifa, a rare occurrence in the dense neighbourhood, turning abandoned plots of land used mostly as a garbage dumps, into a gardens and small football courts. Another socio-economic aspect of its work has been to bring tourism to the area through annual ‘Spend Your day at Al-Khalifa' festivals, where it helps organise historic walks as well as other activities that the local community are part of.

Teaching
May al-Ibrashy gained a Bachelor's in architecture at Cairo's Ain Shams University, before going on to receive an MA in Art, Architecture, and Archaeology, and later, a PhD in Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the University of London. She is a Professor of Practice (Islamic Architecture) at SOAS, as well as an adjunct lecturer at the American University in Cairo.

Selected Publications
Al-Ibrashy has published several works based on her first hand experience in heritage conservation in Historic Cairo.

Articles

 * The Funambulist Correspondents #01 Cairo: Hope Is the Thing With Feathers,The Funambulist, April 8, 2021.
 * Monuments for Our Neighbourhood: How Urban Conservation Contributes to Liveable Cities, Urbanet, 2019.
 * "Historic cemeteries component of the urban regeneration project for historic Cairo." Urban Regeneration report for Historic Cairo-UNESCO–World Heritage Centre (2013).
 * (With Tammy Gaber) DESIGN WITH THE SENSES AND FOR THE SENSES: AN ALTERNATIVE TEACHING MODEL FOR DESIGN STUDIO. International Journal of Architectural Research: ArchNet-IJAR, 4(2/3) 2010, 359-375.
 * "Historic cemeteries component of the urban regeneration project for historic Cairo." Urban Regeneration report for Historic Cairo-UNESCO–World Heritage Centre (2013).
 * (With Tammy Gaber) DESIGN WITH THE SENSES AND FOR THE SENSES: AN ALTERNATIVE TEACHING MODEL FOR DESIGN STUDIO. International Journal of Architectural Research: ArchNet-IJAR, 4(2/3) 2010, 359-375.

Other works

 * The history of the Southern Cemetery of Cairo from the 14th century to the present: an urban study of a living cemetery, PhD Thesis, SOAS, 2005.
 * The history of the Southern Cemetery of Cairo from the 14th century to the present: an urban study of a living cemetery, PhD Thesis, SOAS, 2005.