Environment and Family Development Organization in Qena

Category: Local Organization
Target groups: Marginalized communities: children, women, youth, and people with disabilities
Main field: Social and economic empowerment; health awareness; education
Setting: Urban and rural
Year founded: 1992
A group of Egyptian citizens in Qena working to make a change in their local community. They aim to invest in locally available resources and work on development through community studies, project execution, or through raising awareness and empowering local organizations that focus on women and children's welfare.


Main Activity:

Seminars, workshops, and societal initiatives

Ongoing projects

  • Bader Project
  • Increasing educational opportunities through using active learning methods to train teachers in community schools
  • Educational nutrition project, which provides financial support to families to encourage them to keep their children engaged in school
  • Micro and medium-sized credit programs                                                                   
  • Feda Hostel for women

Past projects

  • Economic empowerment project for girls. The project taught 1,500 girls life skills, handicraft training, feasibility studies, and project planning. At the end of the project, exceptional graduates were offered grants to start their own projects.
  • Self-employment project, which connected private sector entities with young women seeking jobs.
  • Child protection project through protection committees on the governorate and district levels. The project put a spotlight on child abuse and supplied schools and youth centers with a follow-up committee. Guidance counsellors and a representative of the Social Solidarity Ministry were also hired as part of the project. The committee worked on resolving cases.
  • Life skills project, which dealt with various topics, such as self-confidence, conflict resolution, communication skills, gender, and FGM awareness. 
  • New Horizons and Visions Program: 18,000 young men and women graduated from this program and were interested in raising the awareness of young people and girls.                         
  • SMART healthcare awareness project, which raised the awareness of mothers and children and provided pre-and postpartum follow-up.  The project also provided training courses for mothers on good nutrition and health for both mothers and children.
  • School dropout project, which worked on re-enrolling young girls into the primary education system.
  • FGM project: a health awareness project that encouraged villages to publicly declare their intention to fight FGM or claim that the village is FGM-free.
  • Eshraq project, which aimed to educate girls and provide literacy classes for women. After graduation the women are encouraged to form women's clubs at their local youth centers.
  • Encouraging civil participation through youth camps, during which youth received training for one week and delivered the outcome of their training in the form of new initiatives.
  • Safe schools project: guidance counsellors were trained to oppose violence against children in schools.                                                                                                                                                  

Future projects

Child protection project