MENACatalyst and Wafaa Group Collaborating for Impact

Catalyzing meaningful impact starts with strategic partnerships, which is why MENACatalyst partnered with one of Palestine’s leading microfinance organizations, Wafaa Group. The partnership entails Wafaa Group’s ongoing support for MC’s efforts to promote entrepreneurship as a viable solution to steep unemployment rates affecting marginalized Palestinian communities. 

Established in 2008, Wafaa Group has come a long way in introducing its target communities to the power of Microfinance. With locations around the world, the Group strives to create a more equitable future for the disenfranchised via small grants aimed at launching income-generating projects. And in Palestine, they have been at the forefront of change, providing the country’s youth with zero-interest loans, which have proved transformational. In 2018 alone, Wafaa Group collectively provided Palestinian families and youth with 3.9 million USD in funding, through their signature loan program and aid projects. 

The partnership comes at a critical moment for MC, as they launch their latest project revolving around empowering women within the TVET sector. Having established itself as an entrepreneurial enabling platform, MC will leverage its strategic networks of support, business-enabling partners to help women in TVET launch income-generating projects. The project will directly with 20 beneficiaries provide them with incubation and acceleration services, with the support of a dedicated team of mentors along the way. In addition to market access services, the most promising of the projects will receive seed-funding via MC’s ongoing strategic partnership with Wafaa Group. The seed-funding will help select beneficiaries expand the scope of their projects and work towards achieving viability in local markets.

This project is just one of many in which MC collaborates and partners with stakeholders from across the globe to impact local Palestinian communities. To date, MC has since established ongoing partnerships with a host of the most influential entrepreneurial enabling platforms in the region, including MITEF Pan Arab, Wamda, Dtec, Innovest ME, and Oasis 500, among others. And on the international front ongoing partnerships have been established with Anima Investment Network, Seedstars World, and Raspberry Pi Foundation’s signature coding program Code Club to name a few. 

Working to foster the collective resources of the diaspora, MC is dedicated to promoting Palestinian led innovation, industry, and entrepreneurship via cross-sector partnerships with committed stakeholders across the globe. MC embraces the power of collaboration, and since its inception, has dedicated its efforts towards bringing various stakeholders together for the far-reaching goal of creating more collaborative and interconnected ecosystems of support.