Egyptian e-payment giant Fawry announced on Wednesday the expansion of its Heya Fawry initiative to increase poor and disadvantaged women's access to life-enhancing digital financial services and greater economic opportunities. The initiative is in line of Fawry's mission to empower women in Egypt. Now on its third consecutive year, Heya Fawry's expansion was made possible thanks to cross-sector collaboration between Fawry, Unilever, Lead Foundation, and funding support from the British Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) via the Arab Women's Entreprise Fund Programme (AWEF). The initiative aims at helping women gain access to greater job opportunities by becoming Heya Fawry agents, while providing life-enhancing financial services to predominantly unbanked female customers. Ultimately, Heya Fawry creates new revenue streams for low-income women who can now further contribute to their household's income well-being while participating in the Egyptian economy. "We are pleased with the great continued success that Heya Fawry has achieved, as well as its contribution to improve the conditions of low-income and disadvantaged women in Egypt." Ahmed Fahmy, Head of Partnerships at Fawry, said. "We also stand with the Egyptian government to accelerate digital transformation and promote financial inclusion." Meanwhile, Yomna Mustafa, Country Director at AWEF, said: "While AWEF may have served as a catalyst to promote women's economic empowerment and inclusion, it was only due to the commitment, vision and dedication of its partners that the Heya Fawry initiative has reached this level of success," Islam Abdel-Raouf, Alexandria regional sales and Emerging Channels Sector Manager at Unilever, said: "Unilever is proud to participate in this distinguished initiative for the third year in a row. Unilever provides products to Heya Fawry agents, but we also work on developing their marketing & management capabilities, to ensure sustainable incomes." As part of the second phase of the initiative, Heya Fawry was joined by Lead Foundation, a preeminent Egyptian microfinance institution, which designed a dedicated Heya Fawry Microfinance Programme and avails microloans to selected beneficiaries, via digital means. "Believing in our mission to provide poor & low-income entrepreneurs, with sustainable access to quality microfinance services that address their needs, Lead Foundation saw in Heya Fawry a great opportunity that will suit the needs of ambitious female micro entrepreneurs who work from home or manage a shop." said Sandy Salama, Marketing and Communications Manager at Lead Foundation. The first phase of the Heya Fawry initiative built upon synergies between four Core Partners, Fawry, AWEF, and AXA Insurance who offered medical and life insurance services free of charge for three years, as well as Unilever. Unilever trained Heya Fawry agents to become successful retailers of well-known home care, beauty and food brands. To date, Heya Fawry initiative successfully provided more than 300 job opportunities for female agents who enabled thousands of unbanked consumers, predominantly female, to conduct approximately 300,000 e-payment transactions (of a total value worth 10 million Egyptian pounds). Heya Fawry offered support to Egyptian women in the poorest areas in Cairo, Giza, Assiut, Fayoum, and Minya by financing the initial capital needed to become an Fawry agent and raising their capabilities as micro-entrepreneurs. The initiative not only seeks to enhance women's digital and financial skills but also their ability to successfully manage projects, secure profits and expand their networks. Ultimately, Heya Fawry is in line with Egypt's strategy and 2030 vision to aid small investors and traders and boost the plan of digital transformation and financial inclusion. Going forward, Heya Fawry partners also revealed their plan to expand the scope of work available in order to include more women under the next Heya Fawry iteration.
