Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Libyan food delivery service looks to serve up gender equality

[Bulls n Bears]

 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 

 

 

Fatima Nasser’s new business had barely got off the ground when she was
accused of being a foreign spy for giving women employment opportunities in
Libya, her war-torn home country.

The accusation was a measure of the opposition working women face in the
conservative Muslim country, which has been in turmoil since a NATO-backed
revolt toppled long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Just one in four Libyan women is employed, according to World Bank data – a
situation Nasser, 21, hopes to change with a new food delivery app that
allows them to earn money from their own kitchens.

“I’m just doing something to help women that I know deserve better. They
need opportunities, just like males,” Yasser told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.

The app, Yummy, connects women who cook at home with customers wanting to
order food, in much the same way as Uber connects private drivers with
would-be passengers.

It acts as a conduit, offering anonymity options for the cooks, and allows
women to take food orders from men without having to speak to them.

“You have a society that has been closed for 100 years, you can’t just open
a communication gate between two genders that were not supposed to talk to
each other unless they were married to do business,” said Nasser.

She now has 300 cooks ready to start work, having trialled the service
successfully with 20 in the southern Libyan city of Sabha – among them
26-year-old Ekhlas Ekrim.

Ekrim has been cooking and selling her food on Yummy for four months in
Sabha, where a lack of security and ongoing fighting between rival armed
groups have prevented her from going out to work to earn much-needed cash.

“Here they won’t accept that women work. Here your father or brother is
responsible to give you money and everything that you need as a woman in the
house,” said Ekrim, who lives with her parents, two brothers and two
sisters, via WhatsApp.

“Working with Yummy is wonderful and has made things a lot easier. The work
itself is not hard, society is.”

Hope for change

Oil-rich Libya was once one of the wealthiest countries in the Middle East,
but its economy has been crippled by conflict and political division.

Security in many parts of the country is poor and the protracted conflict
has meant more women having to earn a living as men go off to fight, says
development organisation MEDA, which teaches business skills to women in
Libya.

“Culturally it’s maybe not as appropriate for women to work outside the
house. An app like that could circumnavigate some of those issues,” said
MEDA director Adam Bramm.

Last year Yummy was one of three winners of the nationwide Enjazi
competition, which aims to encourage entrepreneurship to help diversify
Libya’s oil-dependent economy.

Nasser won business training and advice from the MIT Enterprise Forum of
the Pan Arab Region and Tatweer Research, which support entrepreneurship in
the region.

The prize included a trip to Britain to meet and learn from successful
entrepreneurs.

“If a woman started a startup (in Libya) she would not have the same
encouragement and support that her brother had,” she said.

“But hopefully this will change. People are starting to believe in females
more and more now.”—Howwemadeitinafrica 



Fatima Nasser

 

Invest Wisely!

Bulls n Bears 

 

Telephone:    <tel:%2B263%204%202927658> +263 4 2927658

Cellphone:      <tel:%2B263%2077%20344%201674> +263 77 344 1674

Alt. Email:    <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> info at bulls.co.zw  

Website:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bulls.co.zw&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AF
QjCNH8LYgdY55h-XKseuM8Kpr-JKdfhQ> www.bulls.co.zw 

Blog:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bulls.co.zw%2Fblog&sa=D&sntz=1
&usg=AFQjCNFoIy6F9IXAiYnSoPSgWDYsr8Sqtw> www.bulls.co.zw/blog

Twitter:                  @bullsbears2010

LinkedIn:               Bulls n Bears Zimbabwe

Facebook:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FBullsBearsZimba
bwe&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGhb_A5rp4biV1dGHbgiAhUxQqBXA>
www.facebook.com/BullsBearsZimbabwe

Skype:         Bulls.Bears 



 

 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: winmail.dat
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 442095 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20180828/2aa54912/attachment-0001.bin>