Crisis to Opportunity: Building a Woman-Owned Business in the Heart of Cairo

Wrapping up our series, Rooted in Resilience: From Crisis to Opportunity, is the story of Reham Ahmed Mohamed in Egypt. For more photos and stories of the Aga Khan Foundation’s partners, please download our 2013 annual report. The last three years have been challenging for everyone in Egypt, as the 2011 Arab Spring gave way to a […]

From Cairo to Plano, Texas

Sanya Khan is a student at Colleyville Heritage High School in Colleyville, Texas, and a volunteer Youth Ambassador with the Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A., which works to end poverty in Africa and Asia. As an ambassador, she led a community service project to give elementary school students, in a low-income neighborhood, inspiration for reading and […]

Market Development Ideas, from Aswan to Bamako

By Schafer Bomstein, Program Associate with the Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. My recent trips to Mali and Egypt were planned with unrelated objectives, but ultimately they shared some unexpected links.  I traveled to Bamako, Mali to support an evaluation of the Food for Progress Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The program links […]

Carving a Future in Cairo’s Darb al-Ahmar

By Caroline Lai, Program Assistant with Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. I returned to Cairo in mid-February to visit the USAID-funded Head Start! for Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment program where I met with a diverse range of people involved in the program. When I previously visited in November, I spent most of my time working with the program staff to develop […]

Returning to Cairo’s Gem and Finding More

By Caroline Lai, Program Assistant with Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. During my first trip to Egypt to visit a friend studying abroad in 2006, we visited Cairo’s Al-Azhar Park. In the taxi ride to the park, my friend described it as “the only beautiful spot in its immediate surrounding area.” At that time, I had not […]

Breaking Down Walls in Egypt

Part of our Summer Travel Blog series! I spent a lot of my time in Egypt thinking about walls. No, really. Walls. Not just the 12th century wall bordering Darb al-Ahmar that Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) excavated as part of the development of Al-Azhar Park, but figurative walls – barriers, if you will – […]

Head Start! Youth Entrepreneurship in Egypt

Even before the recent turbulence in Egypt, young people faced the daunting obstacle of soaring unemployment. In 2010, 9 out of 10 unemployed Egyptians were under 30 years old, and young women faced especially bleak job prospects. After the Arab Spring in 2011, the situation became worse. The Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance and the Aga Khan Foundation […]