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Egyptian activist creates music from garbage

“Music has logic, and anything can make a sound,” says Shady Rabab, who received a UN prize for addressing poverty and waste management in Egypt by making musical instruments from trash and training young people in a band.
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LUXOR, Egypt — For 7-year-old Mohammed Taha, music can easily flow out of an empty Pepsi bottle or a curtain rail.

Taha is a garbage collector who walks from bin to bin. About a year ago, he met Shady Rabab, a musician and activist who thought that once you understood the principles of making pleasant sounds, music could come out of anything, even dismissed materials from garbage bins. He also went a step further, teaching garbage collectors — a job mostly held by Egyptian children — to make their own musical instruments and play them.

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