Village houses sit in small groupings, whereas the city apartments blocks climb above each other as if in competition. You feel the occasional drip from clothes that hang from lines on the balconies, and bright songs differentiate from shops and businesses to houses. Strips of shadow, shade from the high buildings creating blocks to walk under to escape from the rising heat. After turning off a few main roads, it seems like you're back in one of the villages, the tarmac on the road giving way to dust and pebbles.

In the villages of the Assiut Governorate I visit and work with children that are not able to attend schools because they have to work, and get married early - all because of the distance from home to the city. Not being able to access education can create a cycle of a restricted life with little opportunity. In the Assuit City many children work on minibuses (main transport from city to villages) - shouting out the destinations, and collecting the money; working on stalls, giving out shisha in a café, on smaller farms in the city and other meanial jobs. The worse off of these children, many of them orphans, just live and work on the street. There hasn't been a day that has gone by without me seeing a street child - they either simply ask for money or will sell things such as tissues. Some have to sleep on the streets, though many more have rooms where many of them stay, often forming connections with others and looking after the younger ones. Lack of social services means that these children roam the streets of Assiut and remain forgotten by society, living a life so far removed and so stained by their past it is very difficult for them to re-integrate.

Some of these children are very young and their options become less and less the older they get and the harder it is to escape. Only 10% of street children in Assiut passed secondary school. One of the volunteers on my team works in a school for disadvantaged children - the friendly school; which has a variety of non-traditional techniques, aiming to change the behaviour and not just focus on education.

As well as those on the streets there are others that are simply poor. Many have a house and live with their parents but the quality of life is quite low - whilst those in the alleys and streets seep into the houses. Poorer areas of towns are called "shabbee" (also used to describe a type of music). Most of the people in Assiut are poor and therefore shabbee make up the majority.

Read more about Bede's travels around Egypt.