- income generation

-job creation

-vocational training

- ecological sustainability

-environmentally sound technologies

-pollution reduction

- sanitation

-waste-management and treatment

Level of Activity : National

Ecosystem : Continental

The initiative represents a concerted effort by four main actors from the private for profit and private non-profit sectors on behalf of a marginalized group of people, the "Zabbaleen" garbage collectors, who play a vital role in the management of Cairo's urban environment.

Initiative Activities:

The initiative involves household solid waste collection, disposal and recovery. It also aims to inform, educate and convince official government policy and practice to reverse their decision to evict and move the "Zabbaleen". It supports and implements a neighborhood upgrading plan involving the planning of streets, construction of a school, outpatient clinic, park, children's club and credit programs. It is upgrading the garbage collection vehicles from donkey-pulled carts to small pick-up trucks, provides credit for small and micro-enterprise development, holds literacy classes, provides infrastructure (water, sewage and power lines), improves construction by painting the facades of buildings, plants trees, mobilizes the community to participate.

Achievements of the initiative:

- 300 families settled instead of evicted and allowed to continue to collect.

- 200 tons of household garbage per day at no cost to the municipal budget.

- 90% of these 200 tons sorted and recovered for recycling and re-manufacturing on a daily basis.

- Upgrading of the health conditions after the construction of the dispensary and creating job opportunities for 45 persons, 22 young girls in producing home floor mats and in health and literacy classes and 23 young men in literacy and producing recycling machines.