The capability we work toward: a stable income and the ability to be self-reliant and support a family.
Approved activities: establishing projects that create employment for recent graduates.
Program development directions: vocational development, traditional crafts and support for marketing their products, and small-scale economic opportunities.
Why Economic Opportunity Is One of Our Five Areas of Work
A stable source of income shapes almost every part of a person’s life. It affects whether a family can meet its everyday needs, whether children can stay in school, and whether a person can plan for the future rather than only react to the present. When work and income are out of reach, the effects spread well beyond the individual to the whole family.
Ebsar Masr works for sustainable community development, and economic opportunity is one of the five areas through which we do it. The Foundation is committed to the idea that every person should have a real chance to access education, knowledge, health and work, and to take a full part in the life of their community. Work is named explicitly in that vision, which is why this area stands alongside the others and does not rank above or below them.
How Economic Barriers Limit Participation
The barrier this area addresses is set out above: unemployment, especially among young people and recent graduates, and a lack of vocational skills and income opportunities. Young people who have completed their education can find that the next step, a first job, remains out of reach. Others may be willing and able to work but lack the vocational skills or the opportunities that would allow them to earn.
Economic hardship also limits participation in other ways. A family under financial strain has fewer choices about education, health care and community life. Over time, this can make it harder to build a sustainable future, because the resources needed to invest in learning, skills or health are the same resources that are in short supply.
The capability we work toward is a stable income and the ability to be self-reliant and support a family. The aim is a person who is able to provide for themselves and the people who depend on them, and who does not need to depend on others to do so.
Skills, Knowledge and Access to Opportunity
Economic participation depends on more than the wish to work. It depends on having skills that are needed, knowing where and how to find opportunities, and being able to reach them. A gap in any one of these can keep a capable person out of work.
Skills. Vocational skills open up ways of earning an income. This is why vocational development is one of the directions in which the Foundation aims to develop its work in this area.
Knowledge. Understanding what opportunities exist, and how to approach them, is part of being able to use them. Awareness and knowledge are among the commitments that run through all of the Foundation’s work.
Access to opportunity. Skills and knowledge matter most when they connect to a real chance to earn. The Foundation’s approved activity in this area, establishing projects that create employment for recent graduates, reflects this focus on opening up opportunities directly.
Capability-building. We look for solutions that leave a person with a lasting ability, not only a short-term benefit. In this area, that means supporting people toward work and income they can sustain themselves.
The program development directions set out above, which include traditional crafts and support for marketing their products, and small-scale economic opportunities, are directions in which the Foundation aims to develop its work. They describe where we intend to grow, and are not a description of completed projects.
Connected to Our Other Areas of Work
Economic opportunity cannot be separated from the rest of a person’s life, and the Foundation’s five areas of work are designed to complement one another.
Education and digital skills. Learning and skills are often the first step toward work. Digital skills in particular are increasingly part of finding and doing a job. See Education & Digital Skills.
Disability inclusion. People with disabilities should have a full place in work as well as in education and community life. Inclusion in work is one of the directions set out for Disability Inclusion.
Health and wellbeing. Good health makes it possible to work, and steady work makes it easier to look after health. See Health & Wellbeing.
Community and family support. Direct assistance can ease hardship at a difficult moment. Linking that assistance to opportunities that help families become self-reliant is one of the directions set out for Community & Family Support.
From Barriers to Capabilities
The Foundation’s philosophy, From Barriers to Capabilities, asks what is stopping a person from moving forward and how we can help remove it. In economic life, the barrier may be unemployment, a lack of vocational skills, or too few chances to earn an income.
The capability on the other side of that barrier is a person able to earn a stable income, rely on themselves and support a family. As in all of our work, we measure success by what a person has become able to do, not only by what they have received.
Building Opportunity, Not Only Providing Relief
Ebsar Masr is a community development organization, not a short-term relief provider. We recognize that direct assistance can be the right step when it removes or eases a barrier. But we do not treat economic hardship only as a question of short-term help. Wherever possible, we aim for assistance to lead to a better capability or opportunity for the person or family.
This reflects the question that guides all of the Foundation’s work: what will remain once our work is done? In the economic sphere, the answer we hope for is lasting: skills a person keeps, opportunities that continue, and an ability to earn that people own themselves.
We also know that this work is best done in partnership. We aim to work with local communities, specialist organizations and volunteers, and to start from what people themselves say they need. If you share an interest in this area, you are welcome to get in touch through the Get Involved page.