Topic of the hour: Conflict of Identity!

I was asked to write about what I believe is a personal conflict philosophy, and this has been on the top of my head for a while. I gotta thank all the brilliant conversations I had recently with the best people I am lucky to know.
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Defining what conflict is as a concept is a tricky and hard thing to do, especially that the concept bounds several arrays of theoretical and practical approaches. Yet, conflict resolution is considered as an intersection between philosophy theories and effective practice to the most challenging situations that face us nowadays, from refugees’ crisis to serving low economic households.

I believe that understanding our “identity” and decipher the codes that perplex this word is one of the most pressing topics, considering the speedy consequences of globalization that we are witnessing nowadays.
Identity is one of several fundamental human needs that underlie many intractable conflicts. It is believed that conflicts occur when a person or a group feels that their sense of self is threatened or denied legitimacy or respect. From a personal point of view, I probably wouldn’t have thought of the complexity of my identity if it weren’t for the eye-opening experience that I was part of during the Egyptian 25^th Jan Revolution. Not only the Egyptian Revolution but with all the events and crises taking place in the world right now, especially when most of them are affiliated with a certain faith or a certain group of people, there appears a magnifying lens over “who we are”.

Labeling is easy and gives people the power to judge and thus act accordingly to their faith or a social stereotype. Muslim? Egyptian? African? European? Half-American? Feminist? Jew? Liberal? Sufi? Socialist? Tattoos? Black? Christian? 

Through all my traveling, I have met a lot of diverse people and I am often struck when some show their inability to comprehend the essence of mixed components that a person can have and identity can carry. A Muslim feminist? A Sufi Egyptian? I was once asked by a German young woman while volunteering in China, how can I be a feminist and promote for women rights when I have myself covered and obeying a certain faith-based appearance as the cover on my head?
It took me a long time and tens of books to realize the fact that identities cannot be compartmentalized.
We cannot divide it up into separate segments. I have just one identity made up of many affiliations mixed together that produces a unique character to every individual.
Sometimes, these different allegiances conflict with one another and confront the person who harbors them with difficult choices. In some cases, I am not considered an African due to the sterile debate of Egypt’s weak ties, politically and culturally, with the countries of East and West Africa; and being more of an Arab state than an African one.
Nevertheless, the dispute lies heavily in the case of people committing crimes, killings, misfortunes upon other people in the name of a “better” race, religion or social standard. People who feel prejudice to a certain allegiance of their identity without the thought of sustaining their multiple affiliations. The predicament is some of these people are pressed to take sides or ordered to stay within their tribes. The conflict is having to live in a universally fastened-paced environment that makes the whole world a small village; and yet being labeled to a certain group of people, judged and not heard. Also, to understand that a certain act by a group of people is not justified by the majority of it. And that humanity bears us all to help one another, to serve the impoverished and ease-up the misfortunes caused for others.

“For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.” –Amin Maalouf

The bad side of volunteering.

I believe we all had our shares of doing community work, volunteering at a nearby NGO, volunteered internationally or even helped in feeding impoverished homeless or less privileged people.

I can totally understand the fact that doing “charity work” is the society’s repay for all their extravagant living lifestyle, and some do it for the sake of religious duty and hoping for a divine payoff (believe me, we are all in this together, guilty as charged). Egyptians (specifically, and the majority of Middle East in general) are used to “giving the poor” concept since it’s one of the main pillars of Islam under the name “Zakat” or “Sadka”; most of it is done during the Holy month of Ramadan, feasts, or generally as an act of repenting. But what happens next? We leave these people, trying to convince ourselves that we tried but their conditions need more financial assistance or more higher level intervention. And here comes the NGOs, right? That is their role. But what I have against most NGOs is that their vision which was once attached to fulfilling the gaps households need to sustain their living; turns to making the underprivileged always in need of the spoon, which is actually very good for most of the non-profits as they make sure these cases turn to hundreds of thousands worth of media campaigns and ways to pull more funds and donations.

Some take this to the next step; the overwhelming need to travel and why not volunteer, right? Actually it is a very good idea; you don’t only gain a cultural outlook on different societies, but you also get the chance to consider your way of living. Unfortunately, we are now facing what is called the “white volunteerism”. A lot of reports had been conducted recently to highlight the frenzy of white people volunteering in Africa or Asia; which sometimes their whole experience does more good to their Facebook profile and their pretentious selves rather than the good for the people they try to help/ serve. Most of the people who travel to these continents don’t really speak the language of the people or even comprehend the concept of what their needs are.

I once read a story of an American girl who went on a volunteering program to Sierra Leone. The program required those volunteers to help build a school, which most of them didn’t know how to. So there were local people showing them how and helping them through the process. But one night, the volunteers found that there were other construction workers trying to fix what the volunteers were doing all morning!! Yes, that’s what actually happens when we are so happy getting to volunteer abroad. More harm than any good. Let alone, the numerous happy pictures with black children or Chinese kids or beautiful Indian little girls that we pose with and upload on social media, leaving the fact that we don’t really know their names, that these kids will never see the pictures and that this picture will bring no prosperity to their families.

I am not saying that we don’t have to volunteer, but we can choose to help those abroad NGOs using our excellence in academia or skills that they can’t acquire; i.e fundraising, writing proposals, graphic designing, developing curriculums, doing TOT, connecting to international donor organization, strategic planning or any other form of management.  Period. 

To write..or not to write!

I just wanna write. I just wanna keep typing. It always feels like typing and sticking all these words together will help me feel better, but I was always skeptical if what I am writing ever made sense. I tried a lot to take online courses, ask friends whom writing is their source of income ……and sanity.
But what to write about? NO CLUE.

I know how well to write a concept note, a proposal or a business email. But when it comes to anything social...emails for long-distance friends, writing a status or a tweet, talking on phone or anything that has to do with social interaction that requires plenty of energy...I become mentally potent.
Recently, I was in a residential camp outside of Alexandria with a group of activists, civil society gurus and social innovators under a network called "Selmiya" (Meaning Peace in Arabic). The vibe being around people who believes so much in mindfulness, serenity and peaceful solutions to help our every aspect of life was such tremendous effort. Trying to break out of the very hectic, on-going, busy schedule of someone trying to build up her start-up wasn't easy; let alone someone who over-thinks all the entire time. But the atmosphere was really encouraging to try something new, and learn as much as possible from these peaceful guerillas :)
On the second day of the camp, there was an open space, where every person/team had to showcase their entity's activities or field. After finishing my turn, I joined the "Peaceful Journalism" group. The next 40 minutes were the most extraordinary 40 minutes I was ever pleased to spend since a very long time. Hanan Mosallam works as an anchorwoman in BBC Radio and Professor of Peace Journalism in Egypt and Jordan. And she was the facilitator of this session. Hanan teaches this subject using art and meditation. She is the kind of people who you want to sit and listen to for hours, not only because she is very charismatic and her voice beholds immense power and a character you want to know more about, but also because she is the kind of people whom her actions and words are on the same pattern with her beliefs. And God knows how very little those people are in our world now.
The session started with meditation and then we moved and did an exercise where we change our voice tone accordingly saying "أنا موجود وصوتي أقوي من البارود" (I exist, and my voice is more powerful than a bullet).

Just saying it again now makes me shiver, let alone being amongst a group of people saying it once on a very low tone and then from the top of your lungs.
Then, Hannan talked to us about the most headlines that provoked us, we all mentioned the news from the last 4 years since the revolution. Her example was “Egypt on Fire”; Hannan explained that such a headline made her very furious due to the incredibility and the extravagation in showing that all of Egypt is on fire because of what happened in Mohammed Mahmoud Street in Tahrir Square. People kept on saying what news made them very angry and they still can’t forget it. For me, it was “Why did she go there?” which was said about the girl who was shredded of her clothes by the police force during the revolution, and then people blamed the girl for not wearing adequate clothes.
Hannan concluded briefly how we should be aware of the type of news we follow, what sources can we call reliable, how many people could be affected negatively just by a click of yours or what you write on any form of media.
This session, this talk just changed my perspective on writing as a whole…I have been in the dilemma of what to write and who should see it for almost 2 years now, but this activity although was very short but ignited the spark of being responsible for what I want to share and write….which pushed me to think that I always loved new ideas and fell in love with conversations with different people from various aspects of life. Why not write about that?
I still have no clear vision of what i want to write about; especially that i am not sure whether i will commit to it; but what i know is writing this just helped me a bit. Atleast to clear some spaces in my mind from all the topics i ever said "I can write about this!"

Your support and feedback will mean so much to me.

Have a great week y'all! 

Minutes away from an insane world.

It's been a while since we are continuously subjected to news about the world losing its way on a serious ride of anti-normal acts. Lots of incomprehensible events, attacks, worldly decisions and lost lives.
So, i believe it's better for us all to stop analyzing and start praying/meditating asking God /whatever power you believe in whether to make us of use in this world or to make us spend our lives as tourists and die peacefully.

Hereafter, this is one of the posts that is so powerful i watched on Upworthy recently, and i thought to share here. The performer is the world famous word poet Sarah Kay (You can watch one of her amazing word poem performance in TedX here)
The poem mainly speaks to women to unleash their powers and be embraced with self-confidence about their past relationships. The poem is so good that you can translate it in many forms according to your perspective, that's why i wanted to share it here on my blog. There is no specific reason of sharing this other than contemplating on good words, people and stories that keep us sane, humane and aware.

My favorite part:

"It is hard to stop loving the ocean, even after it has left you gasping, salty. So forgive yourself for the decisions you've made. The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night and know this; know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours. Let the statues crumble. You have always been the place. You are a woman who can build it yourself. You were born to build."

Link: http://goo.gl/2nyUqN

May your days be filled with more peace and less misery. 

Trapped in what is called the "Human Rights"

It is such an overwhelmingly prodigious opportunity for me to attend an online course via Stanford University and be informed by different aspects of the interconnectedness of women’s health and human rights; resulting in a wider understanding of the term “Rights” what it aspire for and how does it get accomplished.
Devotedly going through this course (rather studying it) from videos, reading the amazingly acclaimed book “Outrage and Courage”  and the discussion I had with some of the friends who are already enrolling on the course brought to my mind a lot of thoughts that might be unrelated to each other, yet very connected to the topic’s theme.

Below I would love to highlight some of these thoughts in points:
1) A year ago, on the roof of one of Texas’ biggest sports center, I joined a group of powerful Egyptian and American women to watch the movie “Girls Rising” celebrating Women’s International Day. It is an informative, educational documentary about the lives of impoverished girls living in countries (the film showcased Egypt, Nepal, India, Cambodia, Haiti, Ethiopia, Peru, Leone and Afghanistan) where education for girls isn't a priority; exploring that some of the segments deal with intense and disturbing topics including slavery, child marriage, rape, and human trafficking.
What disturbed me watching this movie were the disheartening facts that those girls couldn’t reach the full access for education (easily and sometimes not at all) due to the existentially fraught political/ cultural ideologies that their governments and societies follow.

For example (bringing this example due to my nationality associated condition), the story featured a young Egyptian girl falls prey to a violent sexual attack (been grown in an impoverished area and subjected to the insecure conditions of a country post revolution time) but, rather than become a victim, she becomes a superhero. Yasmin’s is the story of the triumph of imagination over a reality too painful to bear. But what startled me was how much the political condition of a country affected the girl and highlighted that apart from pursuing a hard-sought education like most girls her age in other developing countries, she is a fighting a battle that is unimaginably hard for even any three-times-her-age woman. Yasmin doesn’t even know her right to access to education or living safely, she is rather trapped to dismiss an unfortunate event from her memory that was carved because of the unstable times of her country.
This only managed to make me think of the links between developmental actions and activist acts promoting human rights. This case is not developmental; it is rather because Yasmin’s rights are not even acknowledged by her community.

2) What was mentioned in the “Health and Human rights” video that human rights don’t exist. They’re an idea. They are not tangible. They are a hope for many and they are a reality for some according to your social and economic tree. They are a political ideal that if everyone understands about the vision of the world where those ideas and ideals are available, then one can hope and aspire to have them. Also, the fact that governments can easily sign the agreement but lack the money, the infrastructure and the enforcement of law to implement the articles of these treaties to benefit the society shows a great of political corruption and how dirtily do politics affect a development and gaining rights for its citizens. Yet, hoping for a highly selective concentration from the NGOs (multinational, non-governmental ones) to address those pressing issues and how much a government is widely not acting as easily as signing on words and terms ratifying people’s rights on papers, recognizing that the glass is not as half-full.
I would love if we can pay some attention on how actually implement and what actions to take in terms of community organizations/ NGOs to identify the rights to the people on ground, and in rural areas rather that urban ones.


3) Presently, two-thirds of the world's illiterate population is female. This startling statistics paints a dim portrait of the effects of the gender education gap as a barrier to destroying global economic deprivation. The lack of access to education for girls serves as a breeding ground for pervasive forms of gender-based discrimination to thrive i.e. institutionalized sexism, legal sexual/domestic violence, teen pregnancy, human trafficking and early marriage.
I, earnestly, don’t fathom the institutionalized mechanism that lies within the hands of members of the developed world, recognizing they shall have a duty to ensure that policymakers of developing countries must execute the legislation if these governments themselves do not certify what they have undertaken infront of the whole international community. Meaning, there must be some other forms of galvanizing around it if there shall be no reaction from corrupted governments.

I believe i have more to comment on these issues in further posts. Keep Posted...or not.

Entrepreneurship: Between the trend and the real deal.

I thought briefly about writing this post, and i came to the conclusion that writing is not about being perfect rather than speaking out your mind and putting things into a rational perspective..at least for me. *Just a hint: Try to read this post as if someone is speaking it out loud rather than commenting on the lack of professional/academic writing.

To me, the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt is complex, vague and very close-restricted to a certain kind of propaganda, few incubators, very few accelerators (both are not very much differentiated between, Alas), incompetent ideas are seen as entrepreneurial thinking (a common business project is different than having a mere new,creative idea and bringing it to the light in a business form), mostly tech-related (SocEnt support system in Egypt is done by 4-5 entities only)....and much more dilemmas which i would like to pin-point in this post.
*The ecosystem relates to the different stakeholders including, but not limited to, entrepreneurs, mentors, venture capitalists, angel investors, educators, NGOs, financial institutions and others.  They all represent building blocks in the ecosystem and they are all important to avail a setting that encourages ideas, inspires entrepreneurs, and promotes innovation.  
Let me be honest, what triggered me to write this post was the whole media and social media frenzy over the entrepreneurship-promoting based tv show “El-Mashroo3”....(Somehow like the “Apprentice” tv-show aired on American tv, the only difference is that the candidates were considered to be entrepreneurs”) The tv-show isn’t but an expose, aired mini-model of what’s really happening in the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt.

In points below, i would love to highlight some of these dilemmas:

1) Entrepreneurship in Egypt is always referred to as the “Tech-frenzy”. Most of the startups are based on the use of technology (mobile apps, software, ....) In a country that has over 40% of illiterate population, 50% don’t really recognize/ use the apps on their smartphones and above 25% of children over the age of 10 who can’t really read. Tech-based startups is essential definitely, but as long as the country is satisfied with a reasonable percentage of support system for providing what’s needed in the society. In 2014, Egypt is still suffering from the lack of number of effectively implemented community-based projects that can solve the real issues like Education, Healthcare, street children, livelihoods,...etc etc.
So, before launching your project or startup, apply a simple methodology called “The Design Thinking; it includes more research, ideating and prototyping...you can find informative and simple tools here https://dschool.stanford.edu/groups/k12/wiki/17cff/  
(Just  if you are interested, there are amazing courses on Design thinking on Coursera)

2) Egypt is swamped with people who have great “applicable” ideas who their dreams is to put these ideas into action. In USA and India (according to my experience), one of the main assets of a healthy entrepreneurship atmosphere are the various support system tools that can help early-staged entrepreneurs to kick-off their startup, one of which is the concept of CoWorking Spaces. All over Egypt, there are only 7 coworking spaces placed only in Cairo!! I, mean, in Alexandria for example; there is a great pool of entrepreneurs yet the simplest service is not provided. And the need for such a thing is huge, that i was so startled how come no one thought of starting one already? Coworking spaces is not only about providing offices-like spaces for entrepreneurs and their teams to work with minimum fees, but it is more of a network to connect related activities, conducting related events and trainings...and much more (You can find a piece on Wamda about the services the 7 coworking spaces provide in Egypt here: http://www.wamda.com/2013/03/where-to-find-cairo-s-coworking-spaces)

It is stated that there are many popular business in the world of technology such as Dropbox, Airbnb, and many more small businesses like these ones that started as small incubator companies working in co-working spaces provided. It helped them grow fast and achieve their goals at a quicker rate. This is very important in achieving success in the start-up world. (For more info, this is a good link http://www.businessinfocusmagazine.com/2013/06/coworking-spaces/ )

Moreover, most of the Alexandrian Entrepreneurs are still suffering from the concept of centralization of Cairo as the heart of launching businesses, although there are a lot of unrecognized capability of entrepreneurs. Despite the fact that “Start-up Alexandria” event is one of the most successful entrepreneurship-related events in Egypt, but it is almost the only one known of to common people.



3) The entrepreneurship situation as a whole is very underdeveloped, not only by the very few numbers of accelerators, incubators, networking events and facilities but also the lack of outreach and awareness. From lack of coherent legal framework to the lack of support provided to promote entrepreneurship by the government and the private sector, entrepreneurs are stuck between few of the local entities and foreign institutions to guide them on the route of launching their business. Even if there are some, but apparently they are not performing their marketing strategy to outreach well. There are must be some sort of entity to unveil the ideas of people who don’t have what it takes to know of the existing opportunities for entrepreneurs. When i was working as head of an entrepreneurship project concerned about promoting entrepreneurial skills and concepts to young technicians in schools, was an immensely revealing experience that the entrepreneurship ecosystem speaks with its only language to people who can translate this language thoroughly. Connecting islands is needed.

There are a lot of other issues that i would love to mention but it would take me pages and pages of writing and tons of research, but before concluding, a one remaining point that i cannot deliver in couple of lines which is; the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt (maybe, another post). But till then, you can read amazing preview on that issue from research conducted by Ehab Abdou and Inji El-Abd. (Found online)

Last but not least, Entrepreneurship was a trend for the past 3 years, but now it is an essential requirement to unleash innovation and help the economic growth in a stage where we find ourselves surrounded by false propaganda promoting the term. So, dig deep and spread the word.

Social Sector in India: Connecting the dots.

After living in India for 6 months, that's what i observed professionally, working in the social sector.

India is filled with social problems, but also overwhelmed with millions of social enterprises, NGOs and Foundations.
So, what’s missing? “Social innovation” is the new buzz word of the development sector and usually is associated with the term “sustainability”, The World Economic Forum describes it "as the application of innovative, practical, sustainable, business-like approaches that achieve positive social and/or environmental change."Working closely on research and business partnerships for different fields gave me an in-depth perspective on the way social sector entities operate.
It is completely different to read how the impact is well-measured, and the services are well-delivered on paper and to live the experience during work, and the insights from walking the streets in India.
I managed to recognize what could be the highlights of my learning experience:

-Awareness for the underprivileged about the services
-Support system for early-staged social enterprises
-CSR and the lack of fund for women-focused social enterprises

During the past few months, I learned that Awareness is an important and vital key to tie-up your SE services with your target group of beneficiaries. Advocating for your cause and services with the BOP is the only way to keep people engaged with the impact and the force of mixing your business with the good within the communities, on field.

Also, updating your SEs’ products and programs doesn’t necessarily mean the increase of the impact you reach. As important is the impact evaluation after implementing the project, so is the need assessment. Unfortunately, most of the SEs forgets about that; which pushes them with the worst outcomes especially if they are tech-aligned.

Secondly; “Connecting the dots” concept is definitely missing within the social entrepreneurship eco-system in India and globally. The worst of the social problems is never to be solved with replicating models of solutions, organizations and enterprises who work in the same cause need to unite their forces to create a holistic approach addressing the problem. I think there where the incubators and accelerators entities come in, to link the isolated islands together.

Thirdly, I learned a lot during my work with “Magic Bus” about the CSR and cause-related marketing. I learned about the corporate bill and got to speak with corporates individuals very eager to reconsider their CSR policy. Unfortunately, very few of these corporates put into consideration funding disadvantaged women-focused initiatives.

Last but not least, learning by practice what the social sector is really about is a completely different level than just reading about it in books and watching academics talk about it. And I was lucky to be exposed to such a variety of organizations that gave me a very profound perspective on how to evaluate the impact and the strategies of each of these entities.