The power of social business to empower the visually impaired and spread awareness

Challenge

After witnessing the transformative power of the Dialogue in the Dark exhibition firsthand, the CID Consulting team had a brazen idea – to bring the concept to Egypt, marking the first foray for the social franchise in the Middle East. CID approached Dialogue Social Enterprise (DSE) – the minds behind DID – to discuss opening a franchise in Egypt in order to promote advocacy for those with visual impairments, while empowering them through career opportunities. In order to do so, CID needed to work with partners to establish, fund, and sustain the entity.

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Approach

The DID exhibition allows visually impaired guides to lead visitors through an exhibition of real-life situations in complete darkness. This ‘role reversal’ has the dual benefits of allowing guests to live the empowering experience of accessing senses other than vision, while also providing opportunities for employment and social inclusion for people with visual disabilities. In order to bring this inspiring concept to Egypt, CID Consulting established a partnership with Al Nour Wal Amal (one of Egypt’s most established non-profits working directly with people with visual disabilities) and DSE. Establishing a partnership that leveraged on ANWA's outreach and expertise, DSE's model, and CID's management expertise, we worked with the partners to secure funds through a partnership with the Drosos Foundation to establish the DID exhibition as a social enterprise in Cairo, Egypt.

To do so, we worked closely with ANWA to develop a comprehensive four-year business plan, design the organizational structure of the entity, and develop a full-fledged sales and marketing strategy that positions DID as a transformative educational experience. We are also providing support to ANWA as a technical advisor in areas related to project management, financial management, and fundraising in order to ensure the sustainability of the entity and the institutional strengthening of ANWA. We are now working closely with ANWA and to launch DID into the market and help raise awareness of this unique initiative, hopefully inspiring other similarly ambitious projects across the globe.

Results

After witnessing the transformative power of the Dialogue in the Dark exhibition firsthand, the CID Consulting team had a brazen idea – to bring the concept to Egypt, marking the first foray for the social franchise in the Middle East. CID approached Dialogue Social Enterprise (DSE) – the minds behind DID – to discuss opening a franchise in Egypt in order to promote advocacy for those with visual impairments, while empowering them through career opportunities. In order to do so, CID needed to work with partners to establish, fund, and sustain the entity.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

For over 10 years Xerox Egypt has been in partnership with CID as our Marketing Communications Consultant, and the level of professional support we have been receiving since the inauguration of such successful and rewarding business relationship is invaluable.

The CID team is highly skilled and responsive to our business needs, which enabled us to use CID services to support other business objectives and programs beyond marketing communications, where they have proved similar levels of excellence

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Ashraf El Arman
VP, Global Supplies Group. Former Managing Director, Xerox Egypt

We would like to thank the CID team for all the long hours and dedication to designing our innovation process.

The execution of this innovation process was supported with CID’s organizational network analysis tool, which provided great insight within our organization, allowing us to gain a deeper understanding of its functional, social and strategic networks. The CID team worked closely with our team throughout the process, providing strategic and consistent support. CID’s professional and timely commitment really has helped us kick-start our innovation process.

Thank you for making this happen!

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Heba Makhlouf
Head of Investment Relations & Innovation, SODIC