by lwang | Jan 21, 2015 | INJAZ Al-Arab, Kravis Prize, Soraya Salti
A recent celebration of INJAZ Al-Arab’s efforts to stimulate entrepreneurial growth among Arab youth featured Jordan’s Queen Rania, who has long been a key supporter of this organization, which was awarded a Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership in 2012. The Queen chaired a discussion earlier this month in Qatar that brought together several of the organization’s leaders, including Soraya Salti — who was honored three years ago with the Kravis Prize for raising Amman-based INJAZ Al-Arab’s impact from a local to a regional force affecting the lives of millions of students in surrounding countries. According to the Reuters news site Zawya, job creation and employment opportunities are the two biggest challenges facing Arab youths today — they have also been Salti’s twin priorities for her organization over the past ten years. The successful expansion of INJAZ Al-Arab, Salti noted during the discussion, has been possible because of government supporters, especially advocates like Jordan’s Queen. “We would not be here today without the support of Her Majesty,” Salti told an audience of listeners, who also heard inspiring success stories about 14 young entrepreneurs based in Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Palestine, and elsewhere in the Arab world. What has been instrumental to the non-profit’s success, Salti added, is the Queen’s “belief in our mission to plant the seeds of entrepreneurship and promote it among our youth to encourage self-employment and the creation of more jobs.” RELATED: Visit here to read more about Soraya Salti’s work at the Kravis Prize website. Visit here to read more about Queen Rania’s participation in the event at Qatar’s The Peninsula new...
by lwang | Dec 1, 2014 | BRAC USA, Entrepreneurship, Escuela Nueva, FAWE, Helen Keller International, INJAZ Al-Arab, Kravis Prize, Right 2 Play, Soraya Salti
What are you doing next summer? Since 2006, the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership has been building a special community among its recipients, whose premier organizations are dedicated to improving the lives of millions of people around the globe. That community also extends to Claremont McKenna College’s students, who will have a chance to learn about working with past Prize recipients in the summer of 2015 during the Kravis Prize Internship Fair, which will be held this Thursday afternoon, December 4, 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., in the Freeberg Lounge. Find out about Kravis Prize internships offered both domestically by BRAC USA and Helen Keller International (both in New York City) and internationally by Right To Play, Escuela Nueva, FAWE, Pratham, and INJAZ Al-Arab (Canada, Colombia, Tanzania, India, and Jordan, respectively). The internship program, which is the result of a partnership between the Kravis Prize and the Kravis Leadership Institute at CMC, has enabled CMCers like Carolyn Islam ’16 (pictured above during her internship last summer with BRAC in Dhaka) to receive firsthand experience in problem-solving and applied entrepreneurship as it’s practiced by leaders in the non-profit sector. Students attending Thursday’s internship fair will receive additional internship details, information about the application process, and also have a chance to listen to the stories of classmates who have already participated in this singular internship program. What does Pratham do? What is the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) all about? What organization interests you? Learn more about these past recipients and others by visiting the home page of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership at Claremont McKenna College. Are you...
by lwang | Jan 8, 2013 | Community Development, Entrepreneurship, INJAZ Al-Arab, Soraya Salti
2012 Kravis Prize winner Soraya Salti has spent more than a decade mobilizing the private sector and ministries of education across the Arab world to join forces in creating a new generation of business-minded youth. All Africa News recently published an article by Salti regarding Egypt’s development potential under the country’s new government. In their article entitled, “Egypt: Harness the Youth to Create a Culture of Social Entrepreneurship,” Salti argues that the key to Egypt’s success is to invest in its young people. Salti formulates her argument around three divisions of Egyptian culture that have shaped the country’s identity: rising Internet usage, a large private sector economy, and the region’s most celebrated media industry. She provides the following statistical analysis to contextualize the country’s online mobility: “Magnified by the Arab Spring, millions of young Egyptians are now active on online platforms. As of June 2012, nearly 30 million Egyptians had access to Internet, a 30 percent penetration rate (Internetworldstats.com). Twenty-five percent of all Facebook users in the Arab World live in Egypt, and in 2012 it added more users than any other country in the region, 70 percent of whom were in the 15-29 age bracket (Dubai School of Government, 2012). On top of this, a recent study from the Dubai School of Government found that Arabs increasingly view social media as a tool for developing entrepreneurial skills and gaining productive knowledge. She continues by offering three examples of how to most effectively engage these principles into Egypt’s entrepreneurial culture. As the Regional Director for INJAZ Al-Arab, an organization that uses mentorship by Arab business leaders to inspire entrepreneurialism and innovation among Arab...
by lwang | Jul 20, 2012 | Entrepreneurship, INJAZ Al-Arab, Soraya Salti
In light of last year’s Arab Spring and the recent presidential election in Egypt, it is clear that there are many socioeconomic issues that need to be tackled in the Middle East. Thankfully, 2012 Kravis Prize winner Soraya Salti and her organization INJAZ Al-Arab are working to ameliorate one of the underlying problems, youth unemployment in the region. INJAZ Al-Arab uses their network of Arab business leaders to inspire entrepreneurship and innovation among Arab youth. In an op-ed published in Right Side News, contributor Daniel Doron discussed how previous regimes in Egypt have discouraged entrepreneurship and commerce. Doron noted, “Growing unemployment is preventing a generation of youth from maturing with dignity. Most are too educated to consider working in manual labor, so they remain dependent on their parents.” The op-ed quoted Salti, who said in a 2009 interview: “Youth are marginalized from an opportunity to graduate into adulthood and to become independent, self-respecting human beings who are just able to do the normal things in life, like getting married and having a home.” Now that Salti and others have recognized these issues, INJAZ Al-Arab and their network of mentors are working to foster a new generation of independent, self-sufficient entrepreneurs in the Middle East! “Free Markets Can Transform the Middle East” [Right Side News, March 11,...
by lwang | May 23, 2012 | Community Development, Entrepreneurship, Female Empowerment, INJAZ Al-Arab, Soraya Salti
What sets Kravis Prize winners apart from other social entrepreneurs is their aim to empower those who do not have their own voice. 2012 Kravis Prize winner Soraya Salti’s INJAZ Al-Arab is a perfect example. Youth unemployment in the Middle East and North Africa is the highest in the world and INJAZ Al-Arab is working to remedy this problem. As part of the Global Journal’s series on the New Global Generation of Female Change-Makers, the publication interviewed INJAZ Al-Arab Executive Director Soraya Salti, who discussed the importance of youth entrepreneurship. “[The youth] realize that due to population demographics governments are no longer hiring – they can’t cope with the influx of graduates – and the private sector discriminates against them. So their only avenue for economic inclusion is entrepreneurship, and we see that reflected very, very strongly in the motivation of young females we work with. They take the entrepreneurship experience and opportunity we give them as a raison d’etre. They put their hearts and souls completely into it.” Salti also offered some insight into how and why the government is beginning to work with the organization: “I think it was a moment of awakening for governments, that the biggest national security issue is unemployment. In the short-term, we have been looked upon as a solution provider – by the Jordanian government, by the Saudi government, by the Bahraini government. It’s made our life a lot easier in a way, because so much of our effort went into piloting, and proof of concept, and convincing ministries of education to really take us seriously and invest and give us the...
by lwang | Mar 9, 2012 | Community Development, Education, INJAZ Al-Arab, Soraya Salti
In 2009, PBS’ Frontline/World discussed problems that youth are facing in Cairo, Egypt, noting that there is an average five-year wait for a decent job, even for college graduates. Thankfully, one of this year’s Kravis Prize winners, INJAZ Al-Arab Executive Director Soraya Salti, is working to broaden opportunities for Arab youth. INJAZ Al-Arab runs programs in a dozen countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, including Egypt, that aim to provide experiential education and training to Arab youth in work readiness, financial literacy and entrepreneurship. PBS interviewed Salti regarding the organization’s mission. She discussed the importance of teaching students practical business-related skills in conjunction with their regular educational curriculum: “When you have youth who are educated and unemployed, what will they do with their lives? Either these youth become a burden on our economies or they become an engine of growth and prosperity. We want to catch them before they’re unemployed and we want to instill in them the entrepreneurial spirit and entrepreneurial skillset so that they can create their employment opportunity. We want to create excitement. What’s the best thing to do more than create the competition for entrepreneurs?” As part of INJAZ’s goal to inspire entrepreneurship and invigorate Arab youth, the organization holds an annual competition for the best student company, which is judged by the innovativeness and profitability of the businesses. Watch the video to see how INJAZ is inspiring Arab youth to pave their own future through creative and interactive programs! You can also read PBS’ extended interview with Soraya Salti. To find out more about Soraya Salti, check out her Kravis Prize...
