Egypt

In Egypt, Alfanar has supported the growth of the social enterprise sector by providing management support to social enterprises through the following special projects:

Strengthening Social Enterprise for Migration and Development (SEMD)

In February 2021 we launched the SEMD Programme (Strengthening Social Entrepreneurship for Migration & Development), through which Alfanar will provide management and financial support to social enterprises supporting refugees and host communities in Egypt.

We will be supporting the following social enterprises:

Delta Oil: Delta Oil collects used cooking oil from across disadvantaged communities in Egypt and supplies it as a raw material to biodiesel manufacturers in exchange for a fee - which provides a monthly income to collectors, of which half are women. Through Alfanar's support, Delta Oil will strengthen its existing operations and scale to Alexandria. In doing so, Alfanar will help to provide a new network of refugees and local communities in Egypt with training and dignified employment, whilst continuing Delta Oil's social and environmental impact.

Duma: Duma was established in 2018 and works to create crochet handmade dolls for children, using a Japanese knitting style called Amigurumi. In doing so, Duma creates creative and dignified employment opportunities for female heads of households, mainly within the Syrian refugee community in Cairo, providing them with a weekly income and psychosocial aid. With Alfanar’s support, Duma plans to train and employ 300 additional women -- from refugee and local communities -- and increase sales through improving its e-commerce platform.

Emonovo: Emonovo operates through an online platform which connects young refugees, migrants and members of the local community to various international educational programmes, as well as providing a variety of in-house training programmes to enrich their educational development and career prospects. Alfanar aims to expand Emonovo's outreach by training new students through their fellowship programme, adding new scholarship opportunities for youth across the MENA region and establishing an adequate monitoring and evaluation system in order to measure and grow their impact.

Nakoll: Through Nakoll's Online Cooking School, refugees and migrants — of which, over 70% are women — from across Syria, Yemen, Palestine and Iraq are provided with the equipment, ingredients and training they need to advance their culinary skills and source employment in the food and beverage industry. Through Alfanar's support, Nakoll will continue to expand its Online Cooking School, providing culinary training and employment opportunities to women -- including migrant and refugee women, and women from the local community -- throughout Egypt. Alfanar will also support the establishment of an adequate monitoring and evaluation system, enabling Nakoll to measure and grow their social impact.

Sprints: Sprints provides its trainees with a rich variety of edtech courses, including software development, artificial intelligence and cyber security, training cohorts to become employment-ready upon graduation from their programmes. They also provide trainees with the option to pay back their training fees upon successful hiring - ensuring that disadvantaged youth are not prevented from pursuing a career in tech by their financial situation. With Alfanar's support, Sprints will expand its services amongst refugee, migrant and local communities across various governorates in Egypt. Alfanar will also support Sprints to establish a strong monitoring and evaluation framework through which they will be able to measure and scale their social impact.

Startups Without Borders (SWB): SWB is a MENA region hub which aims to build the startup ecosystem of refugee and local community entrepreneurs through the provision of resources, networking, mentorship, training, investment and building partnerships. Through Alfanar's support, SWB will scale throughout Egypt to provide more than 400 refugee and local entrepreneurs with the tools, networks, and resources to build scalable businesses.

Threads of Hope (TOH): TOH is a social enterprise established by Malaika Linens which provides high-quality embroidery training to women, including women from refugee, migrant, and local communities, allowing them to join Malaika's workforce and earn a dignified monthly income. The workshop also provides a safe space for these women, who are supported with psycho-social care, focused group discussions and group awareness sessions on topics related to wellbeing and trauma. Alfanar is excited to support TOH by expanding their services to train a new cohort of refugee, migrant, and local community women in embroidery, training TOH to improve it's organisational systems as it grows.

Yadawee: Yadawee trains women artisans from disadvantaged backgrounds across Egypt - including those from refugee and migrant communities and women from the local community - to produce authentic crafts using local materials, which Yadawee then sells to international markets. Through this work, women are to generate a reliable, dignified income and support their families. Alfanar is working to support Yadawee to provide in-depth training and employment to 70 artisans - from both refugee and local communities - within its Nilefurat workshop, whilst also supporting the establishment of an adequate monitoring and evaluation system.

With co-funding from the Swiss Agency for Development (SDC) and consortium partners GFA Consulting Group, ACTED and Changelabs, this prorgramme aims to build a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports innovative, entrepreneurial solutions to migration & development challenges in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.