Egypt Protesters Volunteer To Clean Up Streets

Amid the chaos and revolutionary spirit in Egypt today, there is also a growing surge of volunteerism from protesters.

Citing a "new-found pride" and sense of empowerment, those participating in the demonstrations are simultaneously organizing clean-up efforts in the surrounding areas.

One volunteer told the Daily News Egypt about the symbolic nature of his actions.

"We are here cleaning our country Egypt, which is our property and not anyone else's."

Volunteers are devoting their time to washing streets and pathways, picking up trash, and diverting water runoff.

While they clean, some wear signs that say: "To Keep Egypt Clean."

WATCH:

The Jerusalem Post also reported on the giving spirit of Egypt's protesters. Besides clean-up efforts, the Cairo University Hospital has announced an influx of blood donations.

Hospital personnel estimate that over 1,000 people have visited to donate blood since the protests began.

Dr. Gehad El-Ata told the Post that both fellow protesters and other Egyptian citizens are looking to help people injured in the protests because they want to protect their own:

"It's a very Egyptian habit to be beside each other at acute or hard times."

Comments

[MexiChick67]

04:19 PM on 02/01/2011

This is the true for any neighborhood, city, state, or country. If people care for their living area it will bring people together for the betterment.

[mikroskopic]

02:24 PM on 02/01/2011

Humans are capable of great things.

[World4Progress]

12:53 AM on 02/03/2011

Humans are capable of atrocities. Irony??

[mikroskopic]

08:27 AM on 02/03/2011

Everyone knows about the atrocities we create. It's stated and witnessed by billions of people everyday.

This is my perspective, stated eloquently by my favorite scientist Carl Sagan:

"In our tenure on this planet we've accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage, propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we've also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience and a great soaring passionate intelligence, the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth"

[RighteousNotRightWing]

05:57 PM on 01/31/2011

Democracy and volunteerism. Egypt shows the way !

[kiki1966]

06:37 PM on 01/31/2011

Yes. What a wonderful story.

[TricksR4Kids]

05:54 PM on 01/31/2011

Arabs are the kindest most loving people I have met in my travels. Military and US dictators aside.... This is NO surprise for me. If it happened in the USA, then it would be a shock. USA is all about "der terk rrrr guns."

[Mupaaat]

05:37 PM on 01/31/2011

A beautiful thing to see. The world may be be awakening to realize we are all bound together and must support each other. I even dream of some far day to come, when man looks back at our ignorance and our selfish fiefdoms (as we now look back at medieval days) and say, hard to believe men were like that.