Greenish is an Egyptian social enterprise that aims to educate and empower youth in the MENA to solve the most pressing environmental challenges through interactive environmental content, environmental assessments, training, and capacity building. It was co-founded in 2017 by two friends, Shady and Medhat, to empower communities around Egypt to solve their most pressing environmental challenges. It also leads many projects and has worked with local, governmental, and international partners.
The Greenish Educational Manual is the first Arabic environmental manual in the MENA region. The Manual is a product of one of Greenish’s key ongoing achievements, Greenish Clubs, which is a platform designed to provide university and school students with the proper tools to engage in an environmental narrative within their respective communities.
In cooperation with its parent company, Fab Lab Egypt San3a Tech, Greenish is organizing the first environmental festival of its kind in the Middle East on September 3rd at the Greek Campus of the American University in Cairo. The festival is set to be an annual event and is the first of its kind in the Middle East.
Throughout the day, the festival program brings together many activities, including workshops in the field of arts and various environmental skills, including creative recycling, sustainable management of artistic events, carpentry, agriculture, and compost manufacturing.
The festival also includes many discussion sessions on environment-related topics such as Waste Management, How to Achieve Sustainable Cities, Ecotourism, and Climate Change 2021 developments.
The panel discussions will be moderated by representatives of partners from EcoEgypt, the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute (DEDI), Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo, and the British embassy in Cairo.
A large number of associations, companies, and individuals who provide sustainable environmental solutions to the Egyptian market also participate in the festival to display their products throughout the day. Attendees will be able to identify and purchase products from the exhibitors.
Greenish co-founder and general director Shady Abdullah said in exclusive statements to Majalla: "We have invited all companies involved in environmental work to participate in the festival, and we seek to have the largest number of them participate."
He added: "1100 students will participate in the festival and compete for the Medhat Benzheir Environmental Excellence Awards, financial awards presented by the embassies of Switzerland and New Zealand in Cairo and Banque du Caire, named and dedicated to the founder of Greenish, who died in a car accident just one year after the company's founding."
He also added: "We sought to allocate awards to the students in order to further the establishment of environmental projects in 10 different governorates that would benefit the nation and the Egyptian people. The students had previously received training in environmental work in order to provide a variety of sustainable environmental solutions in the future."
Regarding other activities in the environmental festival, he said: "We contacted a large number of artists to participate in the festival and present various lyrical and artistic segments, in addition to holding cultural seminars on environmental work through which we address issues of biodiversity, sustainable cities, waste management, and renewable energy. We will also organize symposia linking environmental work with public health."
Moreover, Greenish co-founder spoke about the most prominent goal of the environmental festival, saying that they are: "Connecting those who are interested in environmental work with everyone working in the system, and participating in environmental work fruitfully. We will make an annual invitation that brings together those interested in environmental work, environmental workers, and their acquaintances in order to make matters more profound and much deeper to find solutions and proposals for environmental problems."
Shady added also that the festival’s timing is significant since Egypt recently proposed hosting the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 27) and he hopes Greenish will have an opportunity to actively participate in the event.
On his dreams and ambitions regarding his enterprise in the environmental field, he concluded: "I dream of a strong environmental community in Egypt, that citizens have more conscious choices at the level of purchasing goods and services, or in their lives in general, and of the presence of huge companies capable of providing alternatives to everything that negatively affects the environment and public health, such as alternatives to the use of plastic and other things harmful to the environment and health. This, in turn, will deepen the role of industry in Egypt as well."
The festival is expected to attract 2,000 to 3,000 people throughout the day, including students and specialists in the field of environment and sustainability from Egypt and abroad.
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