Makan Aamm is an arts and culture project, based in Egypt. We aim to provide holistic artistic experiences and make them available and digestible for everyone. We work with a myriad of musical bands and artists from different genres. We want to decentralize the production and consumption of the arts by going outside of Cairo. Egypt is a very centralized country where most of the arts and cultural activities are mostly located in the metropolitan areas of Cairo and Alexandria. We want to take music concerts, art workshops and visual arts exhibitions outside of Cairo to reach different classes and different tribes and racial communities that are marginalized due to their geographies in Egypt, especially in upper Egypt, a historically disadvantaged region in Egypt.

Nubia, in the very south of Aswan, right along the border with Sudan is a historically disadvantaged area in the south of Egypt because of their dislocation from their lands in the 60s to build the infamous high dam in Egypt. Since the water flooded Nubians' homes, so few resources in terms of arts, arts education, culture, music and any related activities have ever reached there fully. One time, a young male told me that he has never attended a live concert.

We've partnered with Mashrou' Al Saada, which is a project that aims to develop Heissa island, Nubia by painting houses, building playgrounds for kids there, hosting storytelling and art workshops for kids, etc. They hosted the happy festival for people to come to help with these activities. We offered to host a music event during the festival for the participants and Nubians as well. The cheapest thing we could do is to host an electronic music event because it is only one artist (Walad). Nubians have never seen electronic music artists playing before. Eventually, they really enjoyed the music and asked for more events like this. There is a real need for more arts and cultural activities in these areas.