ASHOKA ARAB WORLD QUARTERLY REPORT

Transcription

1 ASHOKA ARAB WORLD QUARTERLY REPORT

2 This report documents Ashoka Arab World s activities for the time period between December 2014 and March During this period, Ashoka Arab World was focused on the election of a new batch of Fellows in the region. Although the Venture team had a solid group of candidates in the pipeline, due to the considerable organizational requirements of the Panel, organizing one in the Fall of 2014 was not feasible. For that reason it was postponed to the Spring of 2015, and currently has a record number of candidates passing through it. It is important to note that this decision did not negatively affect our performance as we were able to maintain our regular standards and had a total of 7 Fellows elected in This report will provide you with a brief update on the activities we conducted in the process of electing new Fellows in the region, and in supporting the existing cohort of leading social entrepreneurs under the Ashoka Arab World umbrella.

3 Election of Ashoka Arab World Fellows Ashoka Arab World is currently preparing the upcoming Panel for the election of new Ashoka Fellows. This Panel will bring together candidates nominated in the period of one year, as no Panel was held in the Fall of In the previous quarter, we had 40 strong candidates in the pipeline. For the past three months, Ashoka Arab World s Venture team has been conducting interviews with potential candidates to be followed by field visits. Based on the information collected, the Venture team has narrowed the group of strong candidates down to 24, who will subsequently be attending the Spring Panel of This particularly large number of candidates is a result of a highly successful Venture campaign conducted in Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Oman, UAE, Syria, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. In addition to their regular activities, the Venture team conducted a workshop, mainly for pipeline candidates, but also for some other entrepreneurs interested in Ashoka s work. This was the first event of its kind to be organized for Fellowship candidates. The main purpose of the workshop was to explain and give examples of the life-cycle of a social entrepreneur; how a new idea is developed and enhanced through an apprenticeship period of trial and error; market analysis to identify opportunities and weaknesses for an individual entrepreneur; and how to hone new insights into a functioning, operational and successful initiative. The workshop was an inaugural event at the beginning of the 3-month program entitled Social Systems Change and Scaling Up Strategies. The current plan is to launch one program per quarter and have 40 entrepreneurs pass through it by the end of the year. Ashoka is expecting a higher number of Fellows to be elected this Spring than usual Nomination Campaign Preparations for the panel

4 Support Provision for Fellows December 2014 January 2015 At the beginning of 2015, Ashoka Arab World established another community partnership that provides our Fellows with increased media exposure. Axeer studios provides media consultancy to the Ashoka Arab World team and its Fellows and assists Ashoka in generating content for its media campaigns. The partnership primarily involves collaboration in different areas such as outreach, resource sharing, and access to various stakeholders. The Media and Marketing team established a valuable partnership with SEE Change Magazine that will increase the media visibility of Ashoka Arab World s Fellows on the global scene. SEE Change Magazine was founded in 2009 in Canada, and is the first publication for and about social enterprise and entrepreneurship. We believe that our partnership with this pioneering media house will elevate and spread the stories of our Fellows to the global scene. Ashoka mobilized the resources of its Media and Marketing department to provide media coverage for events organized by 3 Ashoka Fellows: Maha Helali, Nawal Moustafa and Sami Hourani. Maha Helali partnered with Vodafone Foundation to build a new application for children with autism in Egypt. This app helps young children to communicate their messages by using their mobile devices. Maha organized an event to promote the launch of this app and Ashoka helped Maha to secure strong media coverage at the event. Nawal Moustafa organized an event to announce the launch of her new project Prison is not a shame. The program provides vocational skill trainings for imprisoned women so they can become better equipped for the challenges they will face once they reenter society. Sami Hourani introduced his new web platform to an audience in Jordan and also used the opportunity to promote the work of other organizations from the ecosystem. Local organizations had their booths at the event where guests were able to get more information about their work.

5 Ashoka Arab World launched a social media campaign introducing our Fellowship program to nominators and social entrepreneurs around the region, to encourage them to nominate social entrepreneurs from their networks or themselves. The campaign was featured in Forbes (web edition). Ashoka Arab World also launched the #SparkingInnovation social media campaign, aimed at highlighting the outstanding achievements of our Fellows. This campaign was announced on several platforms including BarakaBits. #SparkingInnovation Cairo Jam was another event organized in Egypt dedicated to social development. It provided Ashoka Arab World with another opportunity to present its work and the work of its Fellows to an Egyptian audience. ThrowBack2014 was the name of anonline social media campaign launched during the last week of December The main goal of the campaign was to showcase the main social entrepreneurship highlights and achievements in the region over the course of In this quarter Ashoka announced the formal election of a new Ashoka Fellow in Egypt, Adam Molyneux Berry. Articles about Adam s election were published by: Elan Magazine, Barakabits, Wamda, Elbashyar News, Lahza News, and Shabab El Nile.

6 Opportunity Creation for Fellows Since December 2015, the AAW team nominated 5 Fellows for awards and events, providing them with a great opportunity to expand their networks and secure additional funds. Rawan Barakat was nominated for the 2015 LEGO Idea Conference. The highlight of the conference will be new learning methods for children based on play. Alaa Murabit was nominated for the financial and capacity building support provided by Frontline defenders. Maysoun Gangat was this year s nominee for the prestigious Schwab award for the leading social entrepreneur of the region. Sarah Toumi was nominated for Echo Green s Fellowship program and together with Mohamed El Raffie was nominated for Ashoka s Changemakers Exchange program.

7 Capacity Building for Fellows In December 2014, the Ashoka Arab World office organized two meetings/workshops with 8 AAW Fellows from the region (Magda Iskander, Waleed Shawky, Ahmed El Maraghy, Mohammed El Raffie, Tarek Ramadan, Ahmed Edilbi, Rawan Barakat, AbdelFattah Abousrour and Jihad Shojaeha). These meetings helped us understand the challenges that our Fellows face in the implementation of their short- and long-term work plans. Fellows identified three main challenges: the sustainability of their ventures with both finances and long-term impact; a lack of variety with regards to income sources; and the absence of effective measurement tools for their social impact. These meetings served Ashoka Arab World s ambition of providing an accurate analysis of our Fellow s challenges and progress. Accordingly the AAW team has been working on the creation of an adequate support plan to help the Fellows overcome the aforementioned challenges. AAW also met individually with two Fellows, Mohamed El Raffie and Elie Abousaab. The purpose of the meeting was to define the Fellows strategies and future work plans. This involved the development of strategies to secure funds for the implementation of their planned activities. Financial sustainability Long term impact Income sources Measurement tools

8 Innovative Solutions As part of Ashoka s Everyone A Changemaker movement, this last quarter witnessed the inauguration of our Empathy initiative inside five schools in Cairo. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the initiative aimed at empowering students and equipping them with leadership skills, innovative and critical thinking skills, and the ability to work in teams. Using an emotionalintelligence approach, the initiative targeted more than 200 students in primary and preparatory schools, engaging them in interactive workshops discussing the importance of empathy, tolerance, acceptance of others, and engagement in community initiatives. Following these sessions and workshops, students designed, managed and implemented more than 12 initiatives in their schools to target their immediate school communities, as well, vulnerable children in their larger communities. Since its inception in 2014, the Street Children initiative has worked with more than 10 CSOs and care institutions with the aim of improving the living conditions and life quality of children on the street. In its first year, the initiative strengthened the capacity of social workers from partner CSOs and care institutions in the fields of health awareness and practices; psychological support; and vocational training. Additionally, four CSOs received microgrants to improve the infrastructure of their facilities. During this last quarter, four CSOs were selected to implement direct activities with street children. Targeting more than 1000 street children, the activities will focus on improving the children s knowledge and skills in the aforementioned areas. Furthermore, the initiative s management team is currently working on a rigorous advocacy plan that aims at changing the negative image of street children in Egyptian society. Over the coming quarter, the initiative will continue to coordinate efforts with the Ministry of Social Solidarity to work with children in the ministry s care institutions across the country.

9 At Ashoka Arab World, we continue to work tirelessly in pursuit of meaningful system-level change, through the election and support of innovative, hard-working, and inspirational local social entrepreneurs. We believe that our relentless efforts to bring about change have already created a significant impact in many sectors, and in many parts of the region, showcasing the true potential of social entrepreneurship in the Arab World. The support of all players in the ecosystem over the past while has meant the continued progression of the Arab World towards a safer, healthier, and more just region for all.