- Title: EGYPT: UN-sponsored 'United Buddy Bears' exhibit comes to Cairo
- Date: 13th April 2007
- Summary: EGYPTIAN FIRST LADY SUZANNE MUBARAK ARRIVING AT EVENT AND CUTTING RIBBON TO APPLAUSE SUZANNE MUBARAK BEING SHOWN BUDDY BEAR EXHIBIT SUZANNE MUBARAK BEING SHOWN EGYPTIAN BUDDY BEAR STATUE IN ARCHWAY IN ZAMALEK GARDENS PARK / CHILDREN'S CHOIR PERFORMING CHILDREN WATCHING PERFORMANCE IN PARK VARIOUS OF CHOIR SINGING SUZANNE MUBARAK WATCHING PERFORMANCE WITH EGYPTIAN CULTURE M
- Embargoed: 28th April 2007 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Egypt
- Country: Egypt
- Topics: International Relations,Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
- Reuters ID: LVA2X17EVX1O6RQJQ4E6LMJWA4I6
- Story Text: The UN-sponsored 'United Buddy Bear' exhibit brings 138 painted fibreglass bears, each one representing a different country, to Cairo with the aim of raising money for needy children and promoting peace by spreading awareness about tolerance and the different cultures that exist around the world.
One hundred and thirty eight brightly painted fiberglass bears symbolizing peace and tolerance were lined up along the Nile on Wednesday night (April 14) as the UN-sponsored "United Buddy Bears" exhibit came to Cairo.
The buddy bears, each representing a different country, will stand hand in hand along the Corniche of the Zamalek Gardens Park in an open air exhibit intended to raise money for needy children and to educate the public about different cultures.
The exhibit was officially opened at a festival attended by Egypt's first lady, Suzanne Mubarak, and other dignitaries as well as several hundred schoolchildren.
The United Buddy Bears exhibit has been displayed in nine countries including Egypt, the first country in the Middle East where it has been shown, and the organizers say it has raised nearly two million dollars for UNICEF, the project's main organizer, and other children's charities.
Speaking at the opening last night, the event's organizer in Egypt, Maryam al-Haythami, said she hoped the exhibition would educate children who visited it about the rest of the world.
"In these forty days we will invite around three million children to come here and be among the bears to get to know them and their countries and to learn all about those countries and their cultures and arts," she said.
The project began in Germany in 2002 as the brainchild of Eva and Klaus Herlitz. The bears, each decorated by an artist from a different country, aim to promote understanding by exposing visitors to different cultures.
The final bear in the exhibit represents Egypt and is decorated in a Pharaonic style by artist Mina Mikhael, who writes on the Buddy Bear website that he chose to use "gold as a symbol of wealth and noblesse. Blue… for the Egyptian sky; turquoise for the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Nile", green to symbolize "Egyptian landscapes with their palm trees, orchards and fields" and ochre as "a symbol of the desert."
While the Egyptian was the last bear lined up on the corniche, the first, an entirely blue bear belongs to Israel, with which Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1981 after decades of war.
The opening ceremony featured a performance by a children's choir and an audio-visual presentation promoting the project's theme of tolerance and co-existence.
"To get people thinking around tolerance, to think about peace, to think about working together. The whole idea is really what that's about, and to model the fact that all of us make up this world," said Erma Manoncourt, the UNICEF Representative to the project.
The Buddy Bears' stop in Cairo is part of an ongoing five year tour that has so far seen it travel to Vienna, Berlin, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Seoul, Sydney.
The organizers say that 12,000,000 people have visited the exhibit so far and they are hoping that the giant, vividly coloured bears lined up along Nile will also attract visitors in Cairo. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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