Nabila, a mother of three from the village of Akaka, was was a stay-at-home mother. Her husband’s salary, earned through long hours in a local factory, did not always cover the family’s needs. By the end of each month, Nabila and her husband had to decide between feeding their children and paying their electric bill. […]
CONTINUE READING →Did you know that in Egypt, nearly two thirds of young Egyptians between the age of 15 and 30 are jobless, neither in school nor employed? Mina, a 19-year-old from Abu Korkas village in the Minya governorate, used to be one of them. But Mina’s life has changed since he came to a HANDS-sponsored job-skills […]
CONTINUE READING →Shereen, a 35-year-old mother of four from the Minya governorate, is a proud landowner. She recently purchased her property using earnings from her clothing store. A few years ago, Shereen was not the same woman who runs a village fashion enterprise and serves as the sole breadwinner for her family of six. Shereen used to […]
CONTINUE READING →In the Moquattam area of Cairo, more than 50,000 zabbaleen, an Arabic word for garbage collectors, survive on sorting and recycling trash from the city. Unfortunately, a lot of children in this community have to drop out of school in order to help their parents collect and sort garbage. In this community, many girls have limited […]
CONTINUE READING →Widowed women in Egypt’s villages can face immense challenges in supporting themselves and their families. For some of them, the death of their husband is the first time they have tried to enter the job market. With little education and no formal work experience, the situation can feel hopeless. Mervat, a 48-year-old woman from Upper […]
CONTINUE READING →For many modern Egyptian women, limited access to vocational training and job opportunities is an everyday reality. According to the World Bank in 2018, only 23% of Egyptian women will be able to find formal employment in their lifetimes. Therefore, the opportunity to start a small business can be transformational for women looking to gain […]
CONTINUE READING →HANDS is excited to announce the re-launch of our Etsy shop: Gifts From the Nile! The Zabbaleen are a community of garbage collectors, inhabiting some of the poorest corridors of Cairo. Zabbaleen families live entirely on waste, earning a livelihood by collecting and sorting trash. The shop features products made by Zabbaleen women from the […]
CONTINUE READING →In 2008, Hanaa caught the entrepreneurial bug. She began making leather products in her home and selling them at local markets in Cairo. Despite the difficulties of gaining a foothold in a competitive market, Hanaa knew she had found her life-long passion. However, she encountered several challenges; her process of purchasing raw materials, then designing and […]
CONTINUE READING →Eman’s life has been far from easy. As a mother of two from Alexandria, both Eman’s husband and son have been diagnosed with chronic health conditions. With piles of bills, their family found themselves in debt. Since her husband was unable to work because of his illness, Eman desperately needed to find a way to […]
CONTINUE READING →Marwa Mohssen is a HANDS’ Professional Fellows alum, who is passionate about empowering women. With the experience and knowledge she gained through our program, Marwa has launched a new project to improve the lives of working mothers at her workplace, the headquarters of CARE Egypt. One of her main goals in this project is to find […]
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Please join us for our annual holiday craft sale in New York City! This is your opportunity to purchase beautiful gifts for your loved ones made by artisans at the Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE), a job skills training program for women living and working in the garbage recyclers’ community in Cairo. […]
We hope you’ll join us on Wednesday, October 12, at the Cosmopolitan Club in New York City to celebrate the work you are making possible in Egypt! We’ll enjoy a silent auction of Egyptian handicrafts, stories from beneficiaries, dinner, and some special speakers. This year we will be honoring Chris Khalifa, the founder of Zooba, […]
Join us as we sell beautiful crafts made by artisans at the Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE), a job skills training program for women living and working in the garbage recycler’s community in Cairo. The handicrafts are made from clean, recycled materials. At the training center, young women learn marketable skills (such as […]
