Motanafas is actually about to be a social enterprise aiming at creating a breathable area in Egypt’s cities starting specifically from Tanta. We are now still in the ideation phase so there is not much to share other than where the inspiration came from. Motanafas idea was actually inspired by our previous life experiences either in Egypt or the U.S. After the 2011 revolution, most of us went down and cleaned up our streets with the help o our neighbors, yet this was not sustainable enough as long as the land is empty, people tend to throw their garbage again and again. I spent the past two years in the U.S doing my MBA, I noticed that every block has a small park for the kids to play and for people to relax a little bit. Currently, I am forming a team to work on the market research to get started.
Hello @DaliaRehab, welcome to Edgeryders! This sounds super-interesting, and right down @hazem’s street – he has many examples of people working on reclaiming social spaces in Egypt.
But what do you mean exactly by “breathable areas”? Air quality tends to be uniform in relatively large areas. You can freshen up a courtyard with a fountain, but you cannot make its air better with one tree. How do you solve the technical problem?
Hey @DaliaRehab weclome to edgeryders
wow would love to talk with you about your project. normally, one of the important topic to solve is who will be in charge of maintaining the space afterwards, so the process should involve the locals in the design and implementation so that they keep the space active and used according to their needs. there are a lot of case studies for this, @heba i think was involved also in creating palygrounds in some schools @HadeerGhareeb was involved in kafr ghataty.
Currently I am also involved in this Madyan initiative, we are trying to work outside of Cairo whenever there is a chance. we worked in Sohag, and would love to see if we can do something together in Tanta. are you living in Tanta ?
we can also talk tomorrow during the community call if you are available