Anamel Masreya

AWTAD’s main vision is to generate employability and entrepreneurship in Egypt and in the MENA Region, through the Middle East North Africa Business Women’s Network. The project “Anamel Masreya” aims to create quality handmade Egyptian products by leveraging the pre-existing crafts through unique designs. The project’s goal is to build the capacity of organizations, artisan individuals and artisan groups through well structured entrepreneurship programs as a means of income generation and preservation of local artisan handicrafts culture. The project components address social and economic issues including unemployment (notably for women and youth), the shift and loss of local production to imported products, waste and recycling, low quality production, the lack of innovation, and strengthening Egypt’s cultural identity through the arts.

The project specific objectives are:

1. To create sustainable businesses for artisans by providing them with design mentoring, business skills, and funding;
2. To create income opportunities by promoting entrepreneurship and skills training and development to different artisan groups and clusters;
3. To increase the value of Egyptian authentic handmade crafts and improve quality control to enhance product quality for competition in local and international markets;
4. To encourage the culture of recycling to eliminate waste;
5. To provide a model for value chains creation in the handicrafts sector.

The designs will be provided by different university students. The project will be implemented in Cairo and 2 other governorates via partner organizations to identify potential artisan groups and handicrafts sectors to be selected based on market assessment conducted during the first three months of project implementation.