A Sapling Grows

She is from my village, this dark young woman, and she is my next-door neighbor — I could call to her from the roof of our house if I wished. I present her to society as an ambitious young woman with her own field, of which she means to make an art. She is Widad Massoud.

She began going to the village dressmaker when she was thirteen, for there was no possibility of continuing her secondary studies. Then came a summer in which a lady arrived in our village who taught sewing while she summered. Widad did nothing less than go to this summer teacher and finish the whole course in two months, at the end of which she carried away a certificate in cutting and sewing.

All this might be quite ordinary; but the remarkable thing is that Widad began to dream: to dream of having a sewing and cutting school of her own. For many are the girls of our village who go to no school at all, and there is no doubt that a school of this kind would help them in the future.

Ambition springs from within the soul, and where it exists, difficulties are smoothed away...

To carry out this project money was needed, and the consent of her family, and their permission to use the house as the school's home in its first days. There was also the matter of obtaining a government license, so that her certificates would be recognized.

With superb diplomacy Widad persuaded her family to help her in everything they could, and she obtained a government license to open a school which she named "The School of Fine Arts in Ain Anoub." In the autumn of 1955 the first graduation ceremony was held.

Nor has her concern stopped at teaching sewing: she is going to work to establish classes teaching reading and writing to the girls who have grown too old to attend an official school — this besides teaching them sewing, cutting, and embroidery.

"Life is not worth living unless we do what lies in our power to do, with complete devotion and speed," says Widad; and she is always in motion, always busy, always smiling.

Age is no measure of greatness: she is great, though still a young woman only a little past twenty. The happy home is her goal, and the goal of every girl in her view; and she is one of those who labor to bring into being the greatest possible number of happy homes.