Limitless Creative Potential

In an underprivileged girls school in the Maadi district of Cairo is where students in their first year of Middle School have been attending Injaz's Personal Economics session. A topic quite new to them, one that they knew little or nothing about, and this represented a challenge to their volunteer.

In order to grab the students attention from the start of the course, all the girls were asked to form groups of 5 and to name each of their teams a name of their choice. Their mission would be to come up with an idea for a project which they could sell and profit from. This was a very intriguing concept to these 11 year old girls who had previously never been given a project let alone come up with an idea for one, they'd always been used to the mainstream way of memorizing and now they'd been given an opportunity to think for them selves and to unleash their ultimate creativity. They had till the end of the duration of the course to actually implement this idea, and see which group came up with the most sellable idea.

So off they went, each of the girls within their own teams getting together during their breaks and after school, coming up with the most creative of concepts and splitting each of the required tasks between them accordingly. By the end of the 10 week course these young girls had come up with some overwhelmingly interesting ideas.

One group which called themselves " The Achievers " had come up with the idea of growing flowers in decorated pots which they grew and designed themselves. This took tremendous patience on their part in caring for the flowers till they blossomed.

Another group which called them selves the artists, unleashed their artistic talents and came up with a variety of decorated picture frames they had made painted and designed.

A third group who seemed to have a passion for fashion, had decided they would use material from their old jeans to make little hand held bags which they decorated with colorful buttons and glitter.

The girls were really proud with their new found businesses and were really excited that their products were grabbing the interest of their friends at school, family and relatives. All these girls put in a tremendous effort into their projects, and proved to everyone the limitless creative potential which could come of young girls their age.

Popcorn Business in Imbaba

Ahmed Mohsen is a 13 year old boy, from the underprivileged district of Imbaba where he attends the Imbaba Preparatory boys school. This year Ahmed and his class mates were given two of INJAZ's curriculum, 'Personal Life Planning' and 'Personal Economics'. Having gotten used to the usual academic schedule, INJAZ was a whole new and exciting experience for Ahmed and his friends who were able to learn something new and different from their regular science and math classes. Having a volunteer teach them as apposed to one of their school teachers was also a break from the norm where they instantly were able to form strong friendships with their in class volunteer.

In the Personal Economics course, students were asked to each come up with a creative project / business they would like to start up. They were each asked to come up with a feasibility study for such a business. Keeping in mind that this was the first type of such an activity for the students Ahmed came up with a very creative idea.

Ahmed decided he would like to open a pop corn stand in his area, his feasibility study in a very basic way listed all that he would need to accomplish such a goal. He wrote down the total capital he would need in order to purchase and make a pop corn stand. He then went on to list in detail all the items he would need and how much they would cost. After presenting it to the class and being encouraged by his peers and volunteer, Ahmed was inspired to actually work on setting up this popcorn stand. He has now decided to start working on saving up money from his family and is well on his way to being the first boy in his area to run his very own popcorn stand.