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Alashanek Ya Balady
 
Subsidiaries

AYB-SD, Alashanek ya Balady Association for Sustainable Development is an Egyptian NGO run by youth, which was founded in 2002 by a group of Egyptian youth who believed in the power of social and economic development to alleviate poverty. The founders of AYB-SD thought of establishing AYB-SD initially as student clubs in universities because youth in universities are used to the concept of charity rather than development, thus creating awareness about development and increasing youth participation in the transformation of Egypt rather than wasting energy in instant aid. The first student club was founded at the American University in Cairo (AUC) in 2002, which started with only two programs: micro-credit and illiteracy eradication.

In 2003 and 2004, the club expanded its activities to six other programs: English classes, human development for children and teens, art expression for children teens, vocational training, health awareness, and tutoring for teens. In addition, in 2003 and 2004, AYB-SD expanded its branches and opened two other student clubs in Ain Shams University and Cairo University. After creating the necessary awareness among youth about the concept of community development, AYB-SD was registered as a legal NGO in 2005 under registration number 6135/05. It is worth saying that the student clubs in universities is still working and expanding its branches in other universities in Egypt. Furthermore, the student clubs are working hand in hand with the NGO.
AYB-SD (the registered NGO) main target group are youth and women; a segment of society that constitutes around 70% of the Egyptian population, but had long been radically marginalized and impoverished. AYB-SD's mandate is to empower marginalized youth and women economically and socially. From its inception, AYB-SD has distinguished itself through its commitment to promoting the rights of marginalized youth and women and challenging traditional taboos and models.
AYB-SD believes that, to improve the life situations of the poorest most marginalized Egyptian youth and women, it is important to apply the concept of “family based development”. AYB-SD trusts that individual development is not effective without developing individual influencers. Thus AYB-SD does not target youth and women alone but rather focus on the development of the whole family. Accordingly, AYB-SD's programs' spectrum is designed to meet family needs rather than individual needs, which in turn affect the development of youth and women in the family. For that reason as well, AYB-SD decided to focus on one area initially to create a success story from which it can replicate in other areas. The area chosen was Misr El Qadeama.
To sustain community development, AYB-SD works on two levels: grassroots level and leveraging level. On the grassroots level, AYB-SD provides direct services to youth and women based on 3-twin pillars of economic, social, and cultural support. AYB-SD's credit program empowers women and young girls to support themselves economically through micro loans that are used to establish micro-enterprises needed to create sustainable income. It is also worth mentioning that AYB-SD is the first NGO in Egypt to apply the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) strategy to support the micro-credit scheme and help out poor families graduate from the circle of poverty. In addition, AYB-SD offers wide range of soft and technical skills trainings to marginalized youth that can help them in developing their interpersonal skills and gain more knowledge about the job market and careers. This is in addition to educational programs focusing on computer literacy and English language development. Youth graduating from AYB-SD skills courses are offered employment opportunities or small loans to establish small enterprises. As for the social programs, AYB-SD has got illiteracy eradication classes for women and young girls, health awareness for children, teens and women, as well as general awareness for women and young girls about how to raise children and deal with the community. As for the cultural programs, AYB-SD has got a program to build children's and teen's self-confidence, leadership, and negotiation skills. This program operates through art expression and human development classes.
The previous mentioned was on the grassroots level. On the leverage level, AYB-SD believes that institutional sustainability is the most important factor in any development model. Grants and donations may help; however, they will never sustain an organization with all its expansion efforts. In addition to grants, donations, partnership with the private sector through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and fundraising events, AYB-SD leverages its resources through subsidiaries. AYB-SD applies the concept of subsidiaries since its legal establishment in 2005. AYB-SD currently has three subsidiaries, which have their own management staff and take their own decisions, except for strategic directions from AYB-SD. The first subsidiary was the Youth Leadership Initiative (now named Youth Leadership Initiative Academy), which offers technical 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. All courses are organized professionally and run in return for fees. The second subsidiary is named Cherry Curves, which is the brand name given to the products of the community's vocational center in Misr El Qadeama. The vocational center was established in Misr El Qadeama in 2006 and turned into a subsidiary in 2007, where it produces high quality hand-made products for high and upper middle class women and girls. The brand name is planned to invade the market rigorously in April 2008. In addition, AYB-SD launched Scope It as a third subsidiary, which provides IT services (graphic design, documentaries and others) for companies, NGOs, and universities.