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The idea of building an NGO that promotes the development of Syrian youth came about before the crisis in Syria, just about a month before, back in June 2011. Dania Ismail, Co-founder of Jusoor was watching the potential of youth being wasted, their opportunities being shut down by unlucky circumstances and an environment that doesn’t encourage it. The problem was that there wasn’t much going on to foster that talent, and while the Syrian crisis could have discouraged Dania and her team from starting, they decided it was actually the perfect moment to get things rolling.

Even before the crisis – there was an educational problem, as well as career development limitations. Some noteworthy efforts for entrepreneurship came along the way, but they were shaded by the enormity of the complications.

Dania Ismail commented on the reasons that led to this project:

“We felt as expatriate Syrians that lived abroad, had chances to work in different institutions, that we can somehow benefit by connecting to the young people in Syria. The statistics say there are almost 20 million expatriate Syrians around the world, almost similar to the number of people inside Syria. We thought why not create this network of expatriates, and connect them to the young talented Syrians to transform these opportunities into realities.”

Roots

Jusoor’s entrepreneurship program started this year, but their earlier efforts began by creating university scholarship programs. At the time of writing, they had over 150 students that were either facilitated or funded by Jusoor and studying at international universities, and almost 1300 kids in refugee educational centers in Lebanon, 3 accelerated learning program centers and a 4th one on the way. They take in refugee kids that have missed education for some time in the elementary level to teach them basic Math, English, and Arabic, so they can later join public school systems. Jusoor are using the UN education program which helps the kids catch up with their peers, and then be able to join a school that can then grant them diplomas.

300 to 500 thousand Syrian refugee kids are missing education in Lebanon. Jusoor help out just 1500 of them so far, and hope to address many more as they grow. The more funding they get the more centers they’re gonna open. They hire Syrian refugee teachers, train them and then pay them for teaching the kids, which is a win-win for the teachers and students.

Jusoor do an annual conference every year; discussions include the refugees, education, entrepreneurship, and related topics. During the conference, they organize a dinner and an art auction linked to it, which helps them raise some money outside the donations. Other sources of funding include Asfari Foundation Farid Foundation, Fadi Ghandour, Chalhoub Group.

In addition to the education program, there’s a career development program that organizes free recruitment workshops for youngsters looking for a job in Dubai, Jusoor did one in Lebanon recently. Recruitment managers instruct attendees on how to look for a job and send their CVs.

The Entrepreneurship Program

After a few Google Hangouts sessions, a live panel online, people started viewing, interacting, asking questions, and entrepreneurs also started to join live on the panel. Some notable examples were Syrian entrepreneur Ali Diab who’s based in San Fransisco; he’s launched a few successful startups. We’ve had Rabih Attaya from Bayt, Ronald Mchahwar from Souq.com. Entrepreneurs like them are surely capable of inspiring young kids, to feel like they have some kind of support, or even a role model.

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Today’s plan:

They organized the first conference in New York, the second in London. For the third upcoming event, Jusoor is going to Los Angeles; which has an expatriate community that can support Jusoor, and it’s close to San Fransisco, which is filled with veteran and elite entrepreneurs that can share their startup experience with young people in the Middle East.

The competition’s first phase launched in the beginning of December: All they do is take applications and evaluate them.

On the 2nd phase: 50 shortlisted candidates will create their own videos and launch them online, website visitors can then rate them.

On the 3rd phase: The top 15 will be analyzed by a panel of judges, who will ultimately choose 3 of them. The 3rd prize is 15,000$, the second 20,000$, and the first 30,000$

This is grant money, it’s not investment, it’s just a way for them to launch or develop and accelerate their startup and business, no matter what field it’s in. So aside from Technology startups, there will be startups in social development, economics, innovative engineering, and more.

Jusoor is not a for-profit organization, they’re an NGO registered in the US, UK, and Canada, and they want to establish themselves worldwide as a charity and a not-for-profit organization.

To satisfy their goal, Jusoor really needs the startups to be based in the Middle East, and to have a potential beneficial impact economically or socially on the Syrian people and on Syria in the future. Obviously now Syria has seen better days, but if someone is working on something that is able to adapt to the current situation, then Jusoor will fund them and help them because of the impact this might have on Syria’s wellbeing in the future. 

Jusoor hope the competition will set them up for a much bigger success story. They wish to continue through this program after the competition is over to build this database of entrepreneurs and mentors, to connect them throughout the year, and to try to help the kids go out to incubation programs. 10 teams are gonna have the chance to send a team member to an incubation program with Oasis 500 – a bootcamp that inspires and teaches entrepreneurs to grow their business and make them investable.