Darb El Najah  High Impact Peri-Urban-  Investment

Darb el Najah” is a follow on grant to “Back on the Map” EDF’s previous grant building on successes, lessons learned, and leveraging the relationships built during the first grant. Its design and components are in synergy with LIFE’s vision of Revitalization Hub initiative. This initiative, Quasi- Hub, is created in some vulnerable peri-urban areas in Lebanon in order to provide the most significant impact.

In “Darb el Najah” 3 organizations: Entrepreneurial Development Foundation (EDF), Michel Daher Social Foundation (MDSF) and The Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture of Zahle and the Beqaa (CCIAZ)  will work in synergy in one concentrated area of Central Bekaa

Darb el Najah grant was signed on October 16, 2019, a day before the October 17th Revolution in Lebanon. What followed after that was the Covid-19 Crisis resulting in a total lockdown. Despite the situation and obstacles. We accepted the challenge and worked hard to continue to build and find solutions to all the issues we faced from doing the training first by area in order to avoid absences on behalf of the trainees. Hence, we were the only organization to succeed!

Achievements:

  • Iimplemented a common capacity building training for 23 persons (Staff: 7 and 16 EDF Alumni)
  • Implemented Capacity Building & Access to Finance Training for 16 groups of 25 trainees each.
  • Implementing of Photography and Social Media Training for 16 groups of 25 trainees each
  • Implementing of Basic Quality and Food Safety Training for 8 groups of 25 trainees each

The training was done in the central Bekaa area, 62% were female and 39% were under 37 years old.

And via the QR code:

 

The objective of this website is to explain about the “Dareb el Najah” initiative, which consisted of 8 activities that were carefully molded to respond to the challenges faced by micro and small businesses in the area.

 

And via the QR code:

  • The objective of this booklet is to provide travel enthusiasts with a tool to explore and experience the best of the Beqaa, while promoting a number of “Dareb El Najah” participants’ related businesses and startups.

The booklet is put on the website as PDF and flipbook

 

  • Video about Dareb el Najah:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1715880251910898&id=379530712212532

 

USAID Lebanon chose the Dareb el Najah video to display on its face book page, where up until now has had 4.7K views.

 

 

  • In kind grants :

We distributed in kind grants for Saint Vincent de Paul for $9,500 and have started distributing 132 in kind grants for $195,000.

 

The Phoenix Project: targeted in the North Bekaa area .

  • Training program: EDF conducted the training of 150 micro and small businesses with 40% of them being women who are business owners.
  • Access to in kind grant assistance: EDF will choose 60 out of 150 businesses (underdeveloped with promising start-up) to receive in-kind grants with an average amount of 1,500. The selection criteria will take into account the viability of the project, growth potential of the business ( possibility of job creation), and commitment of the owner.