Jesuit Cultural Center – Alexandria, Hub of unity amidst diversity

As human beings, we are revealed and make ourselves known to one another by infinite varieties of intelligence, language, race, values, politics, religion, national service, gender presentation, philosophy and a host of other elements common to humankind. The recognition of a common humanity is the first step in the celebration of our differences- differences that inform our cultures, our values, our minds and all our ways of being in the world. Diversity is the chief informant of the creative life force and the central reality in our understanding and stewardship of it. 

Starting from that belief, after its summer vacation, the Jesuit Cultural Center of Alexandria launched in September the new season with many activities of various sorts – the musica and art departments each have significant events, for example. we opened our doors wide to celebrate our diversity and organized for the first time in Alexandria a festival based on real inclusion, opening gates for our audience to be introduced to a new taste of music and to bring ourselves closer to the young generation and their tastes. “Inclusion Festival” on the 15th, 16th and 17th of September 2022 gave the opportunity to 8 trap artists to perform on an open- air stage in our yard, in-front of around 1000 audience per day.  

Because we believe that we are one of the cultural gates to the citizens of Alexandria and that diversity is our keyword, we hosted the iberoamericano film week, 16 embassies from the Iberoamerican countries, Brazil and Portugal to screen their movies, their culture in our premises during the middle of October. Many ambassadors and cultural attachés thus visited our Cultural Center during this week. They admired our house and its green area otherwise surrounded by cement – an oasis in the middle of the city. Furthermore, at the end of the month and the beginning of November we hosted the Cairo Jazz Festival which was held on our premises in parallel to the one held in Cairo giving us the opportunity to present to our audience diversified events. During this festival, with the collaboration of the US embassy and American university in Cairo – we hosted in our avenues two famous American Jazz Bands, they gave musical workshop for Alexandrian professional musicals and played magnificent shows.

We continue to propose a diversity of musical and contemporary dance for our Alexandrian audiences. As for December, we are preparing events for the Christmas season. All our performances are free of charge, and our audiences are quite diverse, bringing together young people, retired people, and everyone in-between.

As for our human formation department, the Jesuit Cultural Center targeted to be closer to young people. We thus, designed special programs for this target audience, including what we called the “Me Can Know – Mecano” program, a set of interactive workshops focusing on topics of interest for young people, such as self-esteem, the search for purpose and meaning in life, for example. As for the humanitarian department of JCC, it continued its Counseling School with more than 40 participants. This school is well known in the Alexandrian community and has educated social workers in many organizations. Finally, we have hosted many workshops like Healing through Dance, Conflict Resolution and other related topics.

Regarding the literary and cultural department, the JCC hosts a series of literature and cultural seminars. This month we are holding a discussion panel entitled “Who is an intellectual, and what should they be?”, for example. This is in addition to the monthly book club, which is attended by around fifty people each session!

By way of conclusion, it is worth noting that the Jesuit Cultural Center is directed by a team of 10 young people who work persistently and creatively to design the programs that meet the needs and the desires of the Alexandrian community.

On behalf of the Jesuit Cultural Center teamwork,

Mario Boulos SJ