Founder of Lebanon’s Nawaya Network NGO wins King Abdullah Award and $50,000 Grant

By T.K. Maloy                   

Amman  — Zeina Saab, the Lebanese-American founder of The Nawaya Network, has won the King Abdullah Award for Youth Innovation and Achievement (KAAYIA). She was presented with the award by King Abdullah of Jordan at the Dead Sea during the recent meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Jordan.

With the award comes a $50,000 grant for her NGO.
  
Saab was one of more than 350 applicants from the Arab world, and was selected as one of 10 finalists from the region; she was the only one from Lebanon.  In April, she was invited to Jordan to present her innovative approach to combatting inequality and poverty in front of a panel of entrepreneurs from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, and Lebanon, who then decided on three winners; the two others were Yasmine Helal from Egypt and Mazin Khalil from Sudan.
 
After attending the World Economic Forum, Saab and the other nine fellows were invited to stay in Jordan for an extra week to benefit from additional training and capacity-building to strengthen their NGOs.  In partnership with Mowgli, all fellows have been matched with mentors who will guide them on their initiatives over the next year. 
 
Saab says that with this opportunity, she will be able to expand her reach to other regions of Lebanon, and hopes to be operating nationwide by the end of 2014.  Her long-term goals for The Nawaya Network include going beyond borders and establishing a presence in other Arab countries.  She hopes to partner with KAAYIA fellows from Jordan and Egypt as a first step and then continue on to the rest of the region.
 
The Nawaya Network will officially launch its online platform on June 17th.  (For a sneak peek of how it will all work, visit: www.nawaya.org)

Editor’s Note: Marcopolis.net featured Zeina Saab and the Nawaya Network in its “Faces of the Economy: Lebanon” section – http://www.marcopolis.net/faces-of-the-economy-zeina-saab-2205.htm