Herfah

I am so honored and filled with pride to be writing about an amazing association such as Herfah. Herfah is the first Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society for Women in both Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Gulf. Herfah aims to revive the Saudi heritage in a more contemporary style and to empower Saudi craftswomen to share their knowledge and expertise at a local and international levels.

Herfah is also helping to preserve the Saudi cultural heritage from annihilation. They do that by training and employing many young passionate Saudi women, who add their own modern style and their personal take on the designs.

Herfah offers many courses and special programs, from time management to hand embroidery, it’s all in effort to help spread and reserve the Saudi culture. Herfah participates in many local and regional festivals, they has participated in approximately 200 artisans festivals and at local and global exhibitions as well. Herfah also uses social media as a platform for promotion and to connect with the people.

One of the most famous successes from Herfah is Herfah by Naeema. It’s a new take on the traditional Saudi fashion, they offer a more modern style while also keeping the integrity of the cultural sense.

Herfah also show cases many loved Saudi baked goods and treats in nicely boxed packages, like Ma’mool (they are dates filled pastries) and Kleeja (they are cardamom cookie biscuits).

Herfah has achieved various awards, like UNESCO’s accreditation as the first Saudi non-governmental organization concerned with heritage preservation. Herfah is truly an inspiring organization, and a great example to be led with for future accomplishments.

WhatsApp, the future of messaging.

Hello everyone, communication in our daily lives plays an important part, and ways of communication nowadays have changed drastically than those before. Some people today may prefer texting or messaging over the traditional phone call, myself included, and with today’s variety of messaging apps comes the famous WhatsApp. WhatsApp has taking the world by storm because it’s friendly, easy to use and it’s fairly cheap considering internet is almost available everywhere.

I remember a time, back in 2010-11, every one of my friends had a blackberry, and I preferred using the iPhone, and there weren’t many ways to chat between two different devices, until someone has recommended WhatsApp to me. WhatsApp might be the first, if not the only one at the time, that was available to download on both a BlackBerry and an iPhone. And what the creators have done, is that they met a need before anyone else has! The development process of WhatsApp is truly mesmerizing, they seek opportunities by observing the current trends, solving problems, and filling any gaps found in the current market for messaging apps, by doing this they have reached a point in innovation no one ever has, no wonder it’s the preferred messaging app to so many people, because as of February 2016, WhatsApp had a user base of one billion, making it the most popular messaging application.

Brian Acton and Jan Koum, creators of WhatsApp, have taken advantage of an attractive opportunity, at a timely and durable point and presented a service that added huge value to their end users. They have taken a risk, considering at the time everyone was using blackberry messaging or the old traditional way of texting. And that risk have paid off, today almost everyone uses WhatsApp, whether it’s to check on a loved one, keep in touch with your colleague, or even send your location to have something delivered to you.

It’s truly remarkable how easy it is to reach someone, anywhere in the world, at any time of the day, by using WhatsApp.

Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is a combination of innovation, the right use of resources and the opportunity to deal with different  critical challenges both social and environmental ones.

Social entrepreneurs focus on changing the systems and practices that are causing poverty no matter where in the world, and help them get a better lifestyle that would accommodated their living situation. This can be accomplished by either making up a profitable, or non-profitable organizations, depending on the decision made, the main goal is to create a sustainable system change that’d benefit the community.

Thus, the key concepts of social entrepreneurship are innovation, market orientation and systems change.

Social entrepreneurship can turn passion into profit. It can provide a variety of benefits to organizations looking to tackle social, cultural or environmental challenges.

Social entrepreneurs tend to work with the purpose of creating value for the society and generate income, too. The solutions they provide are most likely to be innovative, creative, unique, cost effective, people and environment friendly.

The first potential benefit of social entrepreneurship is the opportunity to increase financial sustainability and independence. Secondly, organizations that follow traditional, old fashioned models of funding through grants and donations usually have a tough time growing the size or scope of their services, but with the added financial resources from a business allows the organizations to spend capital on creating new services that otherwise couldn’t be funded. Furthermore, the business investment will allow the scope of the business and social service to grow and gain benefit from it. In essence, social entrepreneurship offers a system for an organization to make their funds go further. The promotion is also easy for these businesses. The media and the public are always paying attention, and if a social issue is being tackled with a solution, it’s very easy to market the idea. But keep in mind, the amount of publicity gained, often rest on on the amount of uniqueness and creativity of the solution.

Social entrepreneurs are drivers of change. Together with institutions, networks, and communities, social entrepreneurs create solutions that are efficient, sustainable, transparent, and have measurable impact.

A few examples of social entrepreneurs and their systems-changing solutions include:

• Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank which spearheaded microfinance globally.
• Wendy Kopp’s Teach for America which transforms educational opportunities for low income groups whilst recruiting top university students to work in America’s worst performing public schools
• Brands like TOMS Shoes and Warby Parker have combined fashion and social good to create a major niche foothold in their industry. TOMS gives away one pair of shoes, and Warby Parker one pair of glasses, to someone in need with each sale. They are making a major impact on easing the lack of glasses and footwear in other countries and sharing those good feelings of charity with their customers.

Additionally, customers are also more willing to actually spend more for products when they know the company is giving back: “50 percent of global consumers said they would be willing to reward companies that give back to society by paying more for their goods and services”,

At the end, many entrepreneurs are making more money now than ever before, there is more to go around when it comes to funding non-profit organizations. This allows entrepreneurs to spend more money on causes that they are passionate and care about.

Reference: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236326