A grassroots organization that grew to become a movement, Educate-Me has been boosting education in Egypt’s underprivileged communities through a model that puts skills and values over knowledge and repetition.
“In Egypt, there are kids in fifth grade that are yet still illiterate,” says Aya Yasser, Educate-me’s Business Development Manager. “So our model is more about developing skills rather than knowledge to enable them to learn more about themselves and what they want to become, focusing not only on literacy, but also communication and creative thinking,” she tells BarakaBits. Their community center, located in Talbeya, Giza, is a growing hub where its 17 members and over 70 volunteers help young Egyptian students learn topics, from maths to fashion design, that match what they can actually do.
Founded by Yasmin Helal in 2010, the organization has already provided over 700 formal education scholarships across Egypt and is now aiming at expanding impact through social business practices. “Over the past 4 years, we have worked on the basis of donations, and now we are moving to a more sustainable model to open up community centers in other areas. We are creating revenew streams, working with company CSR, and developing a training arm to bring revenue streams,” Yasser says. “our key objective is to reach out to all Egypt.”
After running a successful fundraising campaign, the organization was selected among 19 other social businesses as a semi-finalist in the MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Competition, to take place next April 16 – 21 in Kuwait City.
For more information: Find out about other competing startups at the MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Competition‘s website and follow @MITEFarab on Twitter.
