“Akhbar El Mahrousa” February March 2013

Nahdet el Mahrousa (NM), or “Renaissance of Egypt”, seeks to

make a positive and lasting impact on Egypt’s cultural,

economic, and social development by activating and engaging

young Egyptians. NM’s flagship program, the “Incubator of

Innovative Social Enterprises”, leverages the ideas of high-

potential changemakers and empowers them to act as drivers of

social innovation in Egypt. Since its founding in 2003, NM has

incubated over 40 social enterprises – in areas such as youth

development, education, employment, healthcare, and culture

– which currently reach and impact over 10,000 individuals in

Egypt. NM is an Egyptian NGO registered with the Ministry of

Social Solidarity.

About Nahdet El Mahrousa NM

Welcomes 8 new Social

Enterprises (Find more inside)

Nahdet el Mahrousa (NM) leverages the ideas and power of social innovators to tackle Egypt's toughest challenges. By activating and engaging young professionals, we make a positive and lasting impact on Egypt’s social, cultural, and economic development and help Egyptians take ownership of their country.

The first incubator for “early stage” youth-‐led social enterprises in Egypt and the

region

Akhbar El Mahrousa February/March 2013, Issue No.12

Stay tuned to our NEW website coming soon with an NM revamp!

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 2 FEBURARY/ MARCH, 2013

Newly Incubated Social Enterprises

Hawyet Siwa

Located at the base of Dakrour Mountain in the western desert, Hawyet Siwa is an initiative rooted in the schools of environmentalism, sustainability, and the power of partnership. Part cultural center and part ecotel, Hawyet Siwa, will not only provide cultural, educational, and artistic activities to the Siwi community, but will also be Egypt¹s first off-the-grid ecotel—running exclusively on solar energy and biogas. Constructed entirely from recyclable/reusable material, in accordance with Siwi traditional architecture, Hawyet Siwa will be the first hotel in Egypt to be built entirely from shipping containers. This unique design approach embodies the belief, upon which Hawyet Siwa is founded: That there is always an alternative to what is considered the “accepted norm.” They envision an environmentally sound space that celebrates the spirit of the earth, the community, and cultural exchange.

Health Purification

Health Purification is a social enterprise mainly operating in, El Kasr El Eini Hospital. The initiative was founded by a group of Cairo University Medical students. Health purification aims to prevent the transmission of infection in hospitals with a focus on university and public hospitals. Though their methods include advocacy of hygiene and infection control, they focus on a more comprehensive approach, working to build an advanced management system for prevention of disease transmission. Health purification operates through utilizing strategic partnerships between both NGOs and official governmental systems.

www.pdne.info

www.facebook.com/PDNE.Organization/

Ice Cairo

IceCairo is a social enterprise that fosters a culture of innovation, collaboration, and entrepreneurship in the field of green, sustainable, and appropriate technology. IceCairo’s vision is of a “green” market, filled with jobs for Egyptian youth especially for social entrepreneurs. IceCairo aims to turn community challenges into green businesses, and produce triple-bottom-line products that allow these communities to help themselves. Leveraging already existing networks, the program supports models of collaboration and empowerment rather than competition. IceCairo is part of the “icehub” international innovation hub network; other icehubs currently exist in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Weimar, Germany.

icecairo.com/

www.facebook.com/Icecairo


Mesta3gel

Mesta3gel is an Egyptian initiative based in Alexandria, introducing the culture of alternative transportation solutions. "Mesta3gel" focuses on the concept of "bike sharing", promoting it through the availability of bicycle rental services, the allocation of bicycle parking spaces, and the provision of maintenance services and applications to illustrate best routes for riders.

www.facebook.com/Mesta3gelEgypt

Nile Project

The Nile Project curates cross-cultural collaborations among musicians from the Nile region. Through these musical dialogues, the project aims to foster cultural connections among the people living along the river. Inspired by Yoyo Ma’s Silk Road Project, Egyptian ethnomusicologist Mina Girgis and Ethiopian-American singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero developed the Nile Project as a platform to spread cultural and environmental awareness around the Nile Basin.

Info: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nileproject Website: www.nileproject.com

Oreed

OREED is founded on the belief that citizenship values and concepts will be the driver of foundational change and reform in Egypt. Accordingly, OREED’s team has developed a series of workshops and projects aiming to develop—and leverage—youth’s ability to thoughtfully and responsibly participate in political, social, economic, and cultural life. OREED’s vision is to become nationally and internationally recognized as a pioneer in defining active citizenship and instilling its values in society. Their mission is to play a key role in the holistic development of Egypt through empowering Egyptian youth to become active informed citizens who recognize their rights and responsibilities.

www.facebook.com/oreed.org

Yadaweya

Yadaweya's online platform offers consumers diverse Egyptian handcrafted items along with stories and information about the artisans and communities that produced them. Yadawaya’s first handmade collection came from 15 different regions and communities in Egypt: Nuba in Aswan, Sinai, Shalateen from Red sea, Naqada and Hagaza from Qena, Siwa, Sohag, Fayoum, Old Cairo, and the Delta region. Yadaweya believes that its artisans network will extend to cover all of Egypt’s artisanal communities, helping revive and document countless Egyptian treasures.

www.yadaweya.com/

Points of Light

Points of Light is an initiative that attempts to help disjointed and impoverished communities regain a sense of joint capability and responsibility by guiding them through the process of setting up community based solutions or projects in response to their own community’s needs. The initiative attempts to include the people, local government officials, local businesses, and local NGOs in the process. Ideally Points of Light would guide the beginning of what would become the community’s customary way community of tending to its collective needs.

Akhbar El Mahrousa P a g e | 4 FEBURARY/ MARCH, 2013 r

The Incubator of Social Enterprises

The Misriyati program focuses on promoting the values of tolerance, peace and diversity among young Egyptians through an innovative curriculum. The project has an established curriculum and teaching methodology. At the end of each cycle of workshops, participants are requested to brainstorm on means of contributing to their communities. Misriyati planned a Training of Trainers program: to integrate new trainers to the project. The Program started 18th of January and concluded 16th of March 2013, over 90 hours of training over weekends and evenings. Misriyati is also delivering a workshop on Conflict Resolution to 15 participants from ElSadat Association for Social Welfare and Development within their capacity building program for parliamentary employees. The team has also been busy providing a training on violence in schools for "Social Specialists", which took place on Friday 22nd of Feb.

Outa Hamra Outa Hamra, or Red Tomato is a street performance group that aims to develop high standard Drama & other Culture practices serving to develop the society, giving opportunities to learn and to express points of view that might otherwise never be heard.The practice is put to the empowerment of the marginalised who are the direct beneficiaries. It provides tools to initiatives & institutions that aim for similar goals (CBO’s, NGO’s , Development Organisations). For the past 3 months, Outa Hamra have been proceeding with ongoing workshops with Street children in Unicef project “Drama for the Psychological well being of children in a Street Situation”. They were also featured on February's issue of "Community Times" and "What Women Want" Magazines. In the context of The National Solidarity Day for Street Children - children who spend most or all their time on the street which is their home and their main source of income, far from their families - Red Tomato invite you to see artistic creations performed by the children One of the performances is a street parade by 30 children with a Rhythm section; Dancers; and Big Puppets -- created by the children under the Artistic leadership of Outa Hamra Info: Blog: http://outahamra.blogspot.com Facebook:www.facebook.com/outa7amra


HarassMap is a volunteer initiative that works to end social tolerance for sexual harassment through community outreach programs and internet- and sms-based reporting. Harassmap and Selmiya organized a joined workshop entitled “Tahrir Dialogue Circles on Mob Sexual Assaults” on February the 15th. The 8 hour session addressed the issue of politicized mob sexual assault/rape after the brutal events that marked the 2nd anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. Members of both social movements have been exerting much of their efforts to promote the culture of non-violence actions and to end the acceptability of sexual harassment. They achieve these goals through raising awareness about the issue of politicized mob harassment/rape and encouraging protesters and bystanders to keep an eye out to mobs amongst other practical activities such as conducting trainings on Harassmap’s “community action guide”. As part of their awareness campaign, Harassmap also participated at the UN Volunteers Day on February 23rd at Gezira Youth Centre. For more information please visit: Website: www.harassmap.org Facebook: HarassMapEgypt/info Email: [email protected]

OTDI is an organization launched by Medical Students and fresh graduates to the Egyptian population planning to take the lead and change the already present misconceptions and misinformation and to promote/ advocate for legal organ donation.

OTDI had a very exciting month in February and March. Their research program “LABify” finished its first month of lectures and tutorials and moved into its second month: THE LABS! Labify’s participants have already been to the In Vitro Fertilization lab in Queen’s hospital, and have been given their first lecture by Dr. Alaa Ismail on the Introduction to Stem Cells and Ethics of Stem Cell Research. Their team is also about to embark on its very first journey of data accumulation on the topic of Public Perception and Attitude of Egyptians Toward Organ and Tissue Donation, in collaboration with our peers in Faculty of Medicine of Alexandria. This survey is the first of its kind in Egypt and ought to be a great leap in the field of organ-related statistics. Not to end the month on a dull note, OTDI is having a make over! Check out their new look soon…

Info:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/otdi.eg/


Green Arm

The Green Arm is a platform for youth-led environmental initiatives in Egypt that address environmental problems of the urban community and promotes green living.

The Cairo Transportation App Challenge was finally wrapped up after a year of hard work, and difficult decisions for the Green Arm and the other judges on the panel. Awards were finally handed out to three exciting mobile apps addressing Cairo’s transportation challenges, including improvement of maintenance, way-finding support throughout Cairo’s chaotic public transportation, and other creative and much-needed ideas!

The partners for the Cairo Transportation App Challenge program led by the World Bank are the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Ministry of Transport, Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), Green Arm, Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, Vodafone Egypt, Orange, Google, TA Telecom, Microsoft, Alashanek Ya Balady, Bey2ollak, Arabnet, Wamda, and dotopen. Green Arm also announced a workshop on sustainability in transportation planning as a reward to all App Challenge teams to take place in March.

Info:

Website: http://greenarmegypt.wordpress.com/

Email: [email protected]

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GreenArm

their ongoing practices Theatre plays have been produced and performedttt.

Nawaya (seed / intention) is a not-for-profit social enterprise that promotes sustainable agriculture. Nawaya began their 10-day Permaculture journey and Egypt's first international PDC on February the 14th at Fagnoon Art Center. They hosted a wide variety of sustainable agriculture aficionados ranging from Egyptian farmers to Cairean gardening enthusiasts to Lebanese, Greek, Iraqis, Spanish and English green activists. Earlier in February, Nawaya also participated in icecairo’s ‘Ecocities Camp’ where Heidi Fink and Adam Molyneux-Berry gave a talk on permaculture and its relevance in Egypt. For more information please visit: http://www.nawayaegypt.org Or watch a video on the project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ADb5jiFqv4


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NM Partnerships

Our new year started with conducting a second meeting for our esteemed Advisory Committee. The E@W quick win LIPs

(Local Implementing Partner); AYB (Alshanek Ya Balady), LV (Life Vision), NH (New Horizon) and NPMU (National

Program Management Unit), were also invited to attend. Several topics were addressed namely, the overall E@W

Monitoring and Evaluation system and processes, LIPs main challenges and potential means of cooperation between the LIPs

and Committee members.

E@W kick starts its life skills training, Passport to Success (PTS), in El Fayoum and Sharkeya governorates. Furthermore,

our targeted LIPs finalized their market assessments and have submitted their reports. Interestingly, initial findings indicate

the existence of huge skills mismatch between labour supply and employer requirements. While there is a multitude of jobs,

unfortunately, the skills gap continues to exacerbate the market gap. Finally, with the assistance of our LIPs, so far the

E@W programme has successfully been able to train 2389 beneficiaries. Out of the latter, 1690 have graduated from their

trainings and 1111 have been either employed or started their own business.


SALON EL Mahrousa

Women Challenging Traditional Roles by Society – 9 January 2013 AWTAD – Association for Women’s Total Advacement and Development

The salon provided the space to for the “Ana Hunna” initiative. The Ana Hunna initiative seeks to promote gender equality in the working world in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco.

The salon included the screening of two documentaries: “The Grocer’s Daughter” and “Amal” followed by speeches by:

• Mr. Emad Mabrouk, the Director of “The Grocer’s Daughter.”

• Dr. Mervat Abdel Nasser, Founder of Hermopolis

• Ms. Mozn Hassan, Founder and President of Nazra center for feminist studies

The Future of Territorial Governance and Planning for Economic and Urban Development in Egypt – 15 January 2013 Dr. Mohamed Nada, Decentralization and Territorial Governance Advisor for The United Nations Human Settlements Program

Set as a roundtable discussion, the salon discussed important topics concerning the Egyptian such as the potential of the Suez Canal, the potential of Sinai, what is the connection between economic and urban development and how is that connected to Egypt’s future.

Documentary Screening “Schooling the World” – 18 February 2013 Moderated by Motaz Attalla

The salon included the screening of “Schooling the World: the White Man’s Last Burden” followed by a discussion about education and schooling in Egypt and its relevance to the current state of education in Egypt.

Snacks sponsored by TBS


Mohamed Mamdouh is a 25-year-old Electrical engineer who was born, raised in Cairo and currently living in Germany. He got his B.Sc in Electrical Engineering in 2008 from the Faculty of Engineering, Helwan University, Department of Electrical Power and Machines.

On January 2011, Mohamed joined The American University in Cairo, School of Science and Engineering as the FIRST official Science Communicator in Egypt.

On August 2012, Mohamed moved to Germany in order to start his M.Sc. degree at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Renewable Energy.

Mohamed is the founder of Engineering Support Society (ESS) an NGO incubated by Nahdet el Mahrosa , which offers incubation for innovative Engineering projects in terms of technical, financial and managerial support along with training sessions, references, events, sponsorship communication channels and shared experiences. Moreover, he had participated in several extracurricular activities and events, which have the same vision of social development, as Maker Faire Africa and Famelab Egypt.

In addition, he participated in Tahrir Academy as a volunteer for physics series called “ physic facts “. The main target from this series is to introduce to the non-scientific part of our society the basic concepts of daily life activities that have a scientific reason behind. “Physic facts” service has reached more then 500,000 views on youtube from all over around the Arab world.

Mohamed’s main catalyst is his passion for creating a change through defined strategies and methodologies that suites the Egyptian culture and economic states. He believes that these strategies and methodologies will take Egypt to its place in the new flat world if only we focused on what our value add to the whole world not to our selves.

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Egyptians Who Make Us Proud

“Akhbar El Mahrousa” February March 2013

Documents

Transcript of “Akhbar El Mahrousa” February March 2013