Social Ventures are one of the innovative strategies in AYB-SD. The Social Ventures work primarily for generating income for AYB-SD to sustain its programs, and at the same time provide value added activities to different communities.
Click on logos to know more about our social ventures :
Revive
Revive offers specialized and soft skills trainings for youth in universities, institutional development courses for NGOs, capacity building for students in schools, and professional courses for multinationals and SMEs. This social venture is paired with the TCGP. All curricula produced by Revive are translated into Arabic so as to be used for training low-income youth and women to find employment opportunities. In addition, Revive training consultants use the curricula to train community members on a volunteer basis. Most of the Revive’s profits finance the TCGP operational and core activities.
Zaytoona
The second social venture is named Zaytoona (the Arabic name for olive), which is the brand name given to the products of the community’s vocational center in Old Cairo. The vocational centre was established in Old Cairo in 2006 and turned into a social venture in 2007. It produces high quality, handmade products targeting high and upper middle class women and girls in Egypt and the Middle East. Zaytoona is paired with the Vocational Training program, which trains poor communities in Old Cairo on sewing skills, leather making, and handicraft production. The best trainees from the vocational centre are hired by Zaytoona so as to produce the branded products. Zaytoona not only provides employment for the poor, but is transforming widely held stereotypes that the poor cannot produce high quality products, and that NGOs are not able to sell their products at competitive market rates.
Tafanin
At the end of 2008, AYB-SD launched Tafanin (the Arabic word for creative art), its third social venture, to promote social responsibility through art and culture. Tafanin produces Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaigns that solve community problems, while creating marketing opportunities for companies. For example, there are many children in Egypt who turn blind by the age of six because they touch their eyes with their unclean hands every now and then. At the same time, there are soap companies who cannot reach low-income populations. Tafanin bridges this gap by creating a CSR campaign for soap companies, whereby it markets the soap in poor areas, while creating a health awareness campaign for children, encouraging them to wash their hands to prevent early blindness. In addition, Tafanin innovates social businesses that create social impact among low-income populations. For example, it designs an entrepreneurship youth magazine, as well manages an Art School for children in private schools. Furthermore, Tafanin provides high quality graohic and IT services to organizations and companies. Tafanin is paired with AYB-SD’s Cultural and Health programs for the poor. Most of Tafanin’s profits finance the Cultural and Health program, with Tafanin art experts designing professional children curricula using art.
