Leaving Law for Lotions

Mona thought she was among the fortunate ones. She had graduated from college in Upper Egypt with a law degree. She has worked hard and excelled in school and — like all her law school classmates — expected to find a job.

However, like 71% of Egyptian youth, Mona was finding employment opportunities to be scarce.

Even for many college graduates, jobs in Egypt seemed elusive. Mona found herself competing with other recent graduates for a limited number of positions. After several years of trying to find a suitable job, Mona realized that if she did not start looking outside her chosen field, she would forever be reliant on her parents for support.

So she got creative. Realizing how popular her homemade skin lotions were among her family and friends, she decided to try to turn her hobby into a business opportunity. However, her legal training had not prepared her to run a business or to market productions.

That’s where HANDS was able to help. Mona discovered a job-skills training program sponsored by HANDS that provided her with the skills she needed to launch her idea. Through our trainers and online resources, she learned how to turn her home business into a commercial enterprise. Mona graduated from the program with renewed confidence and — most importantly — has succeeded at launching a thriving skin care business.

As a successful small business owner, Mona not only supports herself, but is able to provide job opportunities for other youth in her community.

Without your help, Mona would be still be one of the millions of unemployed young people that haunt Egyptian society.

With your support, HANDS has already launched several exciting job-skills and entrepreneurship training programs to help unemployed Egyptian youth find jobs in their fields or start new careers. Because of your help, almost 30,000 young people have been equipped with marketable skills and are that much closer to steady incomes and stable lives.

For a gift of just $250, you can help transform another life, like Mona’s.

As you make decisions regarding your year-end giving, we hope you will join us in opening doors for unemployed youth across Egypt in 2016.