A few weeks ago after my tour of local JSQ businesses supporting the Egyptian Festival (which is happening this Saturday) and then dinner at The Marina Seafood Restaurant with Ahmed Shedeed. I wanted to learn more about the Egyptian community in Jersey City. The first person that came to mind, was Ramy Eid, the first ever Egyptian municipal Court Judge. I reached out to him for an interview and even though he was extremely enthusiastic about it, we couldn’t do it because of the different rules and regulations he needs to abide by… he is a judge after all! Ramy was gracious enough and took time out of his busy schedule to find me someone I could talk to that is part of the Egyptian Community in Jersey City.
To my surprise, he found my next “Stylish Peep”, Marwa Saadawi. A teacher by day, jeweler by night and the ultimate Egyptian beauty. We met at Porta for a drink and talked about her life as a teacher and jeweler and the wonderful Egyptian community in Jersey City, which is the largest in the Country!
What’s your name? Marwa Saadawi.
What do you do? I am a school counselor by day and a jeweler by night.
What school do you work at in Jersey City? I work at Saint Aloysius and Saint Joseph’s on Pavonia and West Side Avenue. It’s a K-8 school and I am the guidance counselor there. I work with kindergarten through eighth grade and I push into classes once a week, teaching lessons on character education… some of them maybe have interests in respect or friendship or cyberbullying. I just did a bunch of safe and healthy choices with kindergarten and first grade and then in the upper grades, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, I focus a lot of career development.
What I do is I incorporate STEM fields.. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. I get them motivated in those fields so that they sort of start thinking about it when they’re going on to high school. What we’re finding, especially in places like Jersey City and Newark is that we are lacking in STEM subjects and so I’m trying to bring that in school in a more motivational way and talking about all different careers and opportunities that there will be in the future. That’s something that I’m really passionate about so I’m really excited that I’m bringing it into Jersey City.
And what about the Jeweler by night? I leave school and either run to my home office to deal with emails and phone calls, or my manufacturer (in NYC) , to work on designs and refine my jewelry pieces, then interact with my sales, deal with customers requests, handle shipping, bloggers, etc. When I was younger my family and I would go back to Egypt every summer for three months, and I used to watch my mom who would go to local stores and resell and buy a lot of gold pieces.
During these years I was just a silent observer watching her make these deals. My eyes were exposed to so much jewelry at such a young age, and then I was fortunate enough to travel to a lot of places and have seen a lot of big bazaar’s and souks. Never really put the two and two together until I graduated college, couldn’t really get a teaching job and I started, you know, thinking about, well, why don’t I just make my own job? And that’s kind of how it started. It’s basically been growing steadily.
What’s the name of your jewelry company? Indira Jewelry.
How long have you been doing it? I’ve been doing it for four years, but I would say that this is my first official collection this year that I designed and had produced in New York. Beforehand, it was going to Egypt and dealing with people there and kind of like just choosing pieces, whereas now I can consider myself an actual designer.
How would you define your style of jewelry? This collection is definitely very geometric. I am always looking for pieces that are timeless, so my jewelry is obviously is not the cheapest jewelry that you’ll find because it’s real silver, it’s all real high quality materials. I kind of look at it as my customer is going to be somebody who’s going to invest in a piece of jewelry the way that they would invest in a bag. It’s not your fast fashion, it’s not going into Forever21 and getting your fix for the night. It’s more like this is something I would want people to wear forever and also be able to hand down to the next generation because that’s kind of what my mom did for me.
Can you tell me a little bit about the Egyptian community in Jersey City? Absolutely, we have the most amount of Egyptians in the United States after L.A., in Jersey City. I’m happy that I’m in Jersey City.
The feedback that I’ve even been getting in my school, it’s like when I first sent out my “Welcome Letter,” you can recognize that I am an Egyptian by my name, and it was just overwhelming. The amount of phone calls that I got from Egyptian mothers who were speaking to me in Arabic and welcoming me and asking me to look out for their children and they’re just so excited that finally there’s not only an Egyptian in the school, but a guidance counselor. I think that definitely separates me from a lot of people, and I’ve actually been able to incorporate that.
I talk about my heritage a lot and I think that a lot of kids who come from minority backgrounds have really related well to it, they’ve just taken a whole new level of respect for me. A lot of other counselors are like “How is your just office busy all the time?” and I’m was like, “I don’t know, my face is out there, I talk about it, I’m real with them.” I’m able to connect on a real level and I’m just trying to get out there as much as I can. And then you know, Ramy, he’s the first Egyptian judge in Jersey City, and we so celebrated this weekend, that was exciting. He’s just been trying to help me get into this area and try figure out other opportunities for my jewelry and for education.
Do you have a favorite Jersey City hangout spot? I love Beechwood.
Anything else you’d like people to know about you or your jewelry or the Egyptian community? Well I’m definitely excited to be working in Jersey City. I’ve always wanted to work in a city so I’m really excited about that. I’ve worked in a lot of different schools and nothing has been so welcoming and so warm like Jersey City has been. I just love that I am able to do two things that I’m so incredibly passionate about. I love education, I love being a guidance counselor but I also love the jewelry and the creative aspect of it, and so I’m able to explore different parts of my mind all in one day and I think that’s such a unique and beautiful thing that I’m able to bring to the table.
Facebook: Indira Jewelry
Instagram: Indira_NYC
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