Empowering Community Leaders in Realizing Impactful Ideas

Facebook Community Accelerator Program

The Community Accelerator is part of Facebook’s Leadership Community Program, a global initiative that invests in people who are building communities. This eight-month regional program is designed for leaders who manage meaningful Facebook groups, helping them harness the power of their community to transform ideas into action. Throughout the program, the participants receive training and coaching sessions along with access to new Facebook products as well as funds to invest in an initiative that can spread the positive influence of their communities.

Held in partnership with enpact in the MENA region, the program provides coaching and training sessions along with financial support of up to 50,000 dollars in a course of eight months. The implementation of the program is taking place in two phases; over the first phase, the participants of community leaders receive hands-on resources and access new Facebook products. The purpose is to get the participants prepped for executing an initiative that will be taking place along the second phase of the program. In March 2022, a demo day will mark their graduation, where they will showcase the initiatives they implemented along with their learnings and achievements throughout the program. 

Aim of the program:

The Community Accelerator Program aims to harness the power of the community, turning impactful ideas into action. Our role is to facilitate the acceleration program for the 12 selected communities in Egypt and Morocco, who are representing the MENA region. For this, a curated training session provided by Facebook but delivered by us was to be conducted on a weekly basis. Next to the provision of specific content relevant for growing and moderating their communities, the training focused on sharing knowledge, best practices, discussing new ideas and concepts, and network building.

Key figures:

• 14,000 applications received.
• 131 selected communities from 22 countries.
• 12 selected communities from Egypt and Morocco.
• 50k$ for each community to implement their initiatives.
• At least 24 initiatives will be implemented by the community leaders in Egypt & Morocco.
• 60 hours at least for delivering training and one-on-one coaching sessions per month.

Meet our participants in Egypt and Morocco!

The 12 selected communities in Egypt and Morocco cover a range of sectors such as arts and culture, healthcare, mental health support, crisis relief, tourism, entrepreneurship, and more.

• Mustafa Sharara, SYNC Community, Egypt: SYNC is a community-based school for creatives in Egypt. It provides on-ground and online workshops, talks, live sessions, and other activities that connect professionals in different creative fields and participants trying to join those fields, through education, networking, and practice.
• Dina Hashish, Golden Years, Egypt: Golden Years Group is an online community focusing on seniors in Egypt. It provides a listing of all products and services that cater to seniors (healthcare, social and cultural), and products that improve their quality of life. The purpose of the group is to help seniors connect, build friendships, seek advice and tips and discuss or share referrals and reviews on healthcare services, products/services including; doctors, nurses, nursing care, or home care.
• Eslam Samy, Mesh Lwahdak, Egypt: Msh Lwahdk is a community that focuses on supporting its members with their mental health. The name means in Arabic “You are not alone” and it prides itself on offering a safe place where people talk freely about their mental issues. Its aim is also to spread awareness around mental health through the provision of a medical directory of therapists with clear reviews, and a magazine guesting trustworthy psychiatrists.
• Nawal Mountassir, Lyed fel Lyed, Morocco: Lyedfelyed is a community focusing on creating solidarity campaigns in Morocco with families who have been affected by Covid.
• Marwan Zitane, MTC, Morocco: Moroccan Travellers is a community for travelers to share their experiences, tips and inspire each other to discover Morocco and overseas. The group also encourages its members to travel in a sustainable way and brings its community together for actions to preserve the environment and take care of the highly visited sites.
  
• Ahmed Fawzy, AN Game Studio, Egypt: AN Games Studio Club is a community of game developers. The aim is bring together people who work in the game industry to grow and to have the tools to develop.
  
• Olivier Bassouk, Entrepreneur Z, Morocco: Entrepreneur Z is a community-based in Morocco acting as a network of entrepreneurs and initiators of various projects from across the African continent. It offers workshops, mentoring, and other sessions to introduce young people to entrepreneurship, and also connects the African diaspora in Morocco to vital resources and networks.

• Nour Shokry, Together We CANcer, Egypt: Yes we CANcer is a community for cancer patients to share their journeys and find support. It also brings together the patients’ caregivers to help them process their close ones’ journeys and support them in the best way.
  

• Esam Saleh, BanhaCity.com, Egypt: BanhaCity is a community serving the residents of the City of Banha in Egypt, located 50km north of Cairo. Its two objectives: providing maximum support to each community member by being the 1st local guide for the city with directories of services, and allowing people to connect with each other through various events, radio shows, and solidarity campaigns.

• Yehia Arafa Mustafa, The Y career chat, Egypt: The Y Career Chat is a community for mature and genuine career discussions where the support and mentorship are crowdsourced, and peer support enables fresh graduates, early career professionals, and more established professionals to benefit each other’s professional development by sharing tips, opportunities, lessons learned and other precious advice that can prove to be life-defining for the members.
  
• Mostafa Adel, NGO’s Hub, Egypt: NGOs’ Hub is a Community of Practice (CoP) for non-profit professionals in Egypt. The group encourages the exchange of knowledge, experience, and opportunities (i.e., job, scholarships, fellowships, internships). with the broader aim to help members advance in their non-profit careers and/or education.
  
• Zeinab El Ashry, Confessions of a Married Woman, Egypt: Confessions of a Married Woman is a women-only community where women can speak up and support each other regardless of their family status – single, engaged, married, divorced, or widow. The aim is to hold a safe space for women to talk freely about their problems especially health wellbeing, relationships, and work. By providing a space for the “confessions”, the community contributes to alleviating the burden that women in Egyptian society bear silently and enables them to develop themselves to their true potential through guidance and sessions with various health professionals.