Cairo, 25 Sept 2004 - From a Cairo garbage collector to an Islamic scholar, Egyptian actor Mahmoud Yassin has played an amazing variety of characters in a career spanning five decades. But his commitment to fighting poverty has given Yassin his most challenging role yet - helping raise awareness in the Arab-speaking world of the world's 840 million chronically hungry people.

Yassin's desk in his home office is surrounded by hundreds of history books, testimony to a lifetime of preparing for starring roles in Egyptian plays and films. But it is modern events on the international stage that will drive his new position as WFP's first Arab Ambassador against Hunger.

His television is tuned to one of the Arab satellite news channels. As he talks, he steals a glance at a sadly familiar scene from Iraq where an armed group is threatening to behead a hostage. Yassin shakes his head in sorrow.

"Every human has a heart that should feel for the problems of humanity, but the artist should be the one who feels it more deeply than others because an artist deals with human souls. They are the material with which he works," says Yassin, in an interview for WFP's website.

For the past 22 years, Yassin has been the chairman of the Actors, Journalists and Authors of Giza Charity Association, which helps poor people in Giza, the province directly across the Nile from Cairo.

What is little becomes more, when it is given in aid
Mahmoud Yassin, WFP Ambassador

The Association recently used the proceeds of a theatre production performed voluntarily by 20 Egyptian movie stars to fully equip the surgery room in a poor community hospital; another hospital received a kidney dialysis machines. In the 1990s, the Association provided furniture worth half a million Egyptian pounds (nearly US$80,000 at current rates) to a school damaged by an earthquake.

"I believe that anyone who can offer something to a hungry woman or a child to make life more bearable should not hesitate to do so, no matter what he or she has. As the saying goes, what is little becomes more when it is given in aid," he says.

WAR EXPERIENCE

Born and raised in the Mediterranean city of Port Said in 1941 to a middle class family, he grew up with his nine siblings in a small city that he fondly remembers for its 15 cinemas and several theatres.

"Our life as a family was very quiet, [but] the wars the city suffered affected the life of many people and I'm one of them since my teenage years," he says.

"The Suez war of 1956 was a very ugly experience... I was only 16 years old at the time. There were soldiers and fighting in the streets. The Suez Canal was closed down and ships were sunk. Schools also closed down for months and it was difficult to buy food.

"There was no international community to help us. We, in Port Said, were alone at that time. We were even out of touch with Cairo as there were no phones or transportation."

UNITED NATIONS

It was this war that made Yassin aware of the United Nations.

"After three to five months of fighting, the UN brokered a ceasefire," he recalls. "It succeeded in putting some sort of an end to it, though there was still guerrilla fighting in the streets. The French and British troops realised they could not fight against a popular uprising and left."

"The UN was our only hope to bring peace and order and to force the British and French soldiers to leave our land."

SCHOOL OF THEATRE

Yassin became infatuated with acting in the early 1950s and benefited from a well-established theatrical scene in his hometown of Por Said, one of Egypt's cosmopolitan and artistic centers.

The city has had a "Theatrical Club" since the 1920s with an extensive library of plays. Professionals and theatre-lovers would gather there to debate the latest trends in stagecraft world-wide.

At the tender age of 14, Yassin was already a regular at the club. Within two years, he was taking part in performances. At 17, he established his own theatrical troupe.

"Port Said marked the best years of my life, because I learned everything about acting, and the worst years because I saw war… Our plays as young actors were about war. It was the experience we were living at that time… Today, we thankfully have peace with neighboring Israel."

No family member tried to discourage Yassin from acting. "In Port Said people loved theater and my father liked the idea that his son loved theatre."

CAIRO

"I had to study law because at that time my father would not have accepted or understood that he had to spend money to send me to Cairo to study acting," recalls Yassin.

At the time, Cairo, the hub of the movie industry in the Middle East, was a far away place for the people in Port Said, four hours by train.

"I just wanted to get to Cairo to be closer to the world of art, so I expressed my interest in law and my disinterest in enrolling in the Theatrical Arts Institute just to convince and encourage my father to agree."

ARAB STAGE

He ended up doing both, qualifying as a lawyer and making his way onto the most important stage in the Arab world.

In 1964, immediately after Yassin gained his law degree, the National Theatre of Cairo announced some acting vacancies. Yassin came first of all the candidates who sat the three entrance exams and he has never looked back, eventually in 1989 becoming the theatre's director.

Both Yassin's children, a son and a daughter, are actors, while his wife Aisha Mohamed Hamdy, a movie star in her own right, retired a few years ago.

DOWN TO WORK

The fact that his children followed in the footsteps of their parents does not surprise Yassin.

"In fact it was their choice, but it was also expected because they grew up in an artistic house, listening to the daily conversations around them revolved around movies, cinema, television, theatre and so on," he says.

Yassin leans back in his chair and reads through the agreement which outlines his roleas WFP Ambassador. For a few moments he becomes the lawyer again, but no questions are raised and no changes made.

"I like it fine. Now, let's get down to work," he says.