About Us

In 2012, the Future Eve Foundation launched the Amal (meaning ‘hope’ in Arabic) Project in three villages in rural Minya, Egypt. Amal started as a humble effort to economically empower widows and female breadwinners through vocational and financial literacy training, as well as micro-finance and innovative micro-social savings and lending groups. Amal equips widows with the resources and support needed to establish microenterprises, and in turn to sustain themselves and their families. More importantly, the Amal Project is premised on an oath that every widow takes to support other widows on their journey to self-relieance once she is able to stand on her own feet.

Through critical seed funding and technical support from the Global Fund for Widows, venture philanthropy investment from Alfanar, and growth funding from UK Aid, the Future Eve Foundation has grown this project to fifteen villages in Minya, five villages in Beni Suef and four urban slum areas.

In 2015, Alfanar piloted the Amal Project with The Women’s Program Association (WPA) in the Burj al Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.

To date, the Amal Project has transformed the lives of 6,400 widows in Egypt and Lebanon and we have only just begun. With your support, we hope to signifiantly expand the reach of this unique investment.

UK AID

Since 2013, UK Aid and the British Embassy in Cairo have provided the critical growth capital to enable this investment in widows’ economic empowerment to scale sustainably.

Alfanar

As the first venture philanthropy organisation working exclusively in the Arab world, Alfanar strengthens grassroots organisations that serve the region’s most vulnerable citizens.

We apply the principles of private sector investment to charitable giving and offer small-sized grants and highly engaged management support to social enterprise organisations organisations that generate both financial and social returns while also transforming lives in the region’s most disadvantaged communities. We work hand-in-hand with these organisations, supporting them to become resilient and financially sustainable in their local communities while bolstering civil society in the Arab world.

True to the meaning of our name in Arabic, Alfanar strives to be a ‘beacon’ of change for the Arab world.

Future Eve

Future Eve is a registered NGO in Minya, Egypt, helping women with expertise and skills in the field of development work.  FEF’s focus is community development, through the implementation of programs and development projects.  FEF does this by supporting programming that empowers women and activates volunteer engagement, in an effort to affirm our belief in the equality of women, men, and children, and their right to a dignified life.

Global Fund for Widows

The Global Fund for Widows is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering widows and female heads of households to overcome poverty through skills-based training, job creation, and micro-finance. Ultimately, our goal is to help widows achieve financial stability, self-sufficiency, accountability, and importantly, become a role model to her own children and to others.

The Global Fund for Widows applies its programs throughout the developing world by forming strategic partnerships with local NGOs, which are dedicated to the empowerment of widows. These local NGOs work in close collaboration with the Global Fund for Widows to develop unique solutions for empowering widows that are culturally and socially appropriate, as most importantly —Sustainable.