The previous year (2019) was a year full of successful achievements, and 2020 seemed to be even more promising. However, the beginning of this year has shocked us all with the quick outspread of the Coronavirus pandemic and the closure of many startups and established companies around the world. It was not easy for any of us, and we all tried to survive by all means. 

This year has taught us that success is not a stable state but it rather depends on flexibility, adaptability, innovation, hard work, and most importantly TEAMWORK.

As a nearshoring company, we believe in the high skills of our talented professionals. However, what made us keep going during this dilemma was our teamwork. We depended on each other, praised one another’s efforts, and even consoled each other when it was unbearable. Each and every member played their parts well. And as we knew that what every member does complements the work of others, we all felt responsible for our survival as ONE entity. During those times of uncertainty, our mutual trust and our dedicated, collective efforts took us to new places.  

This year taught us that the support of our mentors, partners, and clients is an essential factor for survival. 

The local and global network that we have created throughout the years played a vital role in keeping us going farther. We are lucky to have such supportive mentors. They were so generous as to provide hands-on support and gave us pieces of advice regularly.  They were always there for us whenever we needed consultancy. Our partners assisted us on the way, and our dear clients trusted the high-quality of our services.

The COVID-19 lockdown made it clear that having a great experience and innovative ways in offering solutions to tackle painful problems and good market traction are not the only factors that create success for a startup. Having great mentors, partners, clients, and friends proved to be equally essential to sustain and grow these fundamentals. They all made it possible for us to continue the journey we started to accomplish our mission “to create one million job opportunities for women and youth in the MENA region.”

 

This year taught us that a clear vision and a noble mission would lead us to safety, achieving financial and social sustainability as a for-profit company with a social mission.

 

Although it was a year full of twists and turns, we remained committed to our original vision and to our social mission. From the very beginning, MENA Alliances helped many talented and professional women and youth by creating and connecting them with proper job opportunities. This year, we became closer to achieving our mission as we launched a training program in collaboration with our partner from the UK “Code Your Future” to train Palestinian women and youth to become developers so they can catch jobs in the tech industry. This great mission made us meet great professionals from the tech industry who volunteered with us to pave the way for our students to start learning programming from zero. 

 

We also signed more than four (4) new contracts with different companies from Germany, the USA, and the Gulf region to bring job opportunities for more than 170 professionals of women and youth in the MENA region.

 

This year taught us that connecting with each other is precious and valuable, and we need to learn more from others.

 

Through different online meetings that we hosted or participated in, we learned that our differences can bring more benefits to us. We got to talk to students, mentors, experts, companies’ owners, businessmen, consultants, employees in diverse fields, volunteers, ministers, and etc. And after meeting each person, no matter how much expertise or what type of mindset they had, we grew both professionally and personally. Therefore, to bring this joy of learning and growing to our students, ambassadors, youth, and even to us as employees, we created “Ya3ni Talk” sessions series in which we provide a safe space for attendants to hold respectful conversations with experts, mentors, authors, professionals, business owners and intellectuals around the world. 

 

This year taught us – all of us, that we need each other to survive not only the current pandemic but also any other dilemma we might face in the future!