The Arab Foundation for Sustainable Development – Ruwwad

Executive Director: Samar Marwan Dudin
Establishment: 2006
Type: Community Foundation
Focus Region: Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine
Sectors: Education, Community Development, Women Empowerment, Economic Justice.

OVERVIEW

The Arab Foundation for Sustainable Development – Ruwwad is a non-profit community development organization that works with disenfranchised communities through education, youth volunteerism and grassroots organizing. Our approach encompasses an array of programs and projects that, together, strengthen initiative and facilitate redress to problems prioritized by members of the community.

The main programs that anchor Ruwwad: Child Development, Adolescent Development, Youth Organizing and Community Support. Ruwwad is the brainchild of Fadi Ghandour, serial entrepreneur and founder of Aramex International, one of the world’s leading logistics companies. A strong advocate of a more public- spirited and decisive presence for the Arab private sector in the sustainable development of the region, in 2005, Fadi mobilized Aramex and brought together a group of likeminded businessmen with the singular aim of deploying entrepreneurship -talent, resources and skills- in the service of community and to help tackle, however modestly, the inequities that pervade the Arab world.

Ruwwad, which spans today Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, and operates through a strong network of partnerships with civil society and governmental agencies, is the articulation of this ambition. Ruwwad’s main financial backers are entrepreneurs, whose commitment, experience and reach are put to use in advancing its goals, foremost among them generating opportunities and leveling the playing field for the youth, nurturing 360-civic engagement and actively encouraging ground-up solutions.

By sheer virtue of its aspirations, Ruwwad embraces pluralism and insists on respect for diversity. Our team’s working framework is activist and participatory, in method and as a matter of principle. Ruwwad’s, in fact, is a continuous conversation with the communities’ various constituencies, as much to invite freewheeling expression and critical thinking as it is to disrupt the status quo and its entrenched interests.

MISSION

The mission of Ruwwad Al-Tanmeya is to strengthen initiative and facilitate redress to problems prioritized by members of disenfranchised communities, through education, youth volunteerism, and grassroots organizing.

VISION

– Embracing pluralism and diversity

– Promoting equity

– Community service and volunteerism

PROGRAMS

Child Programs, Youth Organizing, Community Support, and Adolescent Development.

Sustainable Development Goals