According to a study published in 2017, only 100 companies are the source behind 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions! And even though global warming is the one threat that should unite us all, it seems quite difficult to do anything about it. Faced with corporate greed and mismanagement mixed with utter negligence and ignorance about the crisis, it’s easier to be cynical than create a solution. In the midst of all this, Hand Over stands out.
Via Hand Over
This organization applies commercial strategies to improve Egypt’s environmental well-being one step at a time. Having just arrived to Cairo from Siwa and Nuweiba, we wanted to know more about who they were and what were they doing there. So, we spoke to members of the Hand Over team to find out more.
Back in 2014, a Radwa Rostom was granted a fellowship from The DO School in Hamburg, Germany, giving her the chance to ignite Hand Over. She is now the CEO of the social enterprise. Their most recent work in Siwa and Nuweiba speaks for itself and is a perfect illustration of what they’re all about.
Via Hand Over
They’ve been recently active and busy with two workshops. One of them took place in Siwa from the 25th of January to the 3rd of February. Hand Over collaborated with Canopy Egypt to design and build a community center over there. They invited students through an open call to spread their knowledge in the framework of a workshop. During this workshop, the students learned about traditional building techniques like Karshif and Rammed Earth construction. Karshif is a substance made from a calculated combination of mud, salt and a collection of minerals from the Siwan salt lake and is the natural building material in traditional Siwan architecture. Rammed Earth construction, on the other hand, uses natural raw material like earth, gravel, and lime, to build foundations, floors, and walls. The workshop also included sessions about interesting and essential topics such as human-centered design, environmental design, and the culture and history of Siwa.
Near the coasts of Nuweiba, they’ve also recently partnered up with the Environmental Architecture and Urbanism program of the faculty of Engineering of Ain Shams University. The goal is to build a yoga center in the town’s organic farm, Habiba. But they also took it to educate students in a seven day workshop on green building techniques that employ natural resources and energy-efficient cmethods.
“I mainly help spread and raise awareness for the cause itself, which is more interesting than traditional marketing activities and enhances my life in some way,” said Nour Gheriany, a digital marketing and PR executive at Hand Over. “I joined Hand Over back in 2014 as a volunteer in one of their earliest projects and this led to me being one of the startup’s oldest members,” she elaborated.
Via Hand Over
We also talked to Ahmed Abd Elgawed, the Chief Technical Officer at Hand Over, and the instructor at the aforementioned workshop in Nuweiba. He handles everything related to construction materials and management. “We try to build using energy-efficient methods and only through the use of the natural raw materials that can be found in every project’s environment, and that can be really challenging,” he explained. “I manage the search for these materials, the design for their mixes, and the training of the workers on the construction techniques we use because they’re often unaware of them. I also manage the execution of the projects,” he added.
What Hand Over are doing isn’t only special, it’s also a necessity in today’s world. Their success is a living proof that doing something about the global environmental crisis is possible. If you’d like to take part in their upcoming projects, be sure to drop by their Facebook page to get notified of their open calls for students and volunteers in general.
