Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Closing down #Tahrir academy , another setback to #Jan25

Because we do not have bad news enough in Egypt now, the famous Tahrir Academy NGO is going to close down after 3 years of success full of international recognition and awards.
Yes the Non-profit online collaborative learning platform producing educational videos  to the 13- 18-year-old Egyptian students covering for free and in simple way subjects like physics,math and Arabic Grammar is going to close down because of the new NGOs law and its restrictions on funding.
In a statement on its online FB page, the NGO collaborative announced that it was going to shut down on Monday.

أكاديمية التحرير توقف نشاطهاالقاهرة في 10 أغسطس 2015 - على مدار 4 سنوات، كانت مهمة أكاديمية التحرير -وهي مؤسسة تعليمية...
Posted by ‎Tahrir Academy - أكاديمية التحرير‎ on Monday, August 10, 2015
We had to downsize our activities and our employees in Tahrir academy as well to sell the assets of academy because of the lack of the funding. As the founders cannot continue in funding the project from their own money and we were unable to collect enough donations, the Egyptian law bans the commercial activities for the NGOs even the commercial activities financing those NGOs. Thus all that prevented us from keeping a proper finance to the NGO. Nevertheless we are still till this moment trying to find any way to continue the project under the umbrella of any other NGO.
I am not familiar with all the articles of the new NGOs law but I think in the past NGOs were allowed to have commercial activities in order to finance their activities if I am not mistaken like Resala which sells tissues boxes.
Nevertheless, I totally respect the decision of its founders including its CEO Seif Abou Zeid, renowned political activist Wael Ghonim and entrepreneur Perihan Abou-Ziad.
Updated:
Tahrir academy is owned by Nabada NGO Foundation which was founded
 The Tahrir academy was founded in 2011 by Seif Abou Zeid. There were lots of hope that it would bring positive change in education in Egypt like Khan academy.
By the way , Wael Ghonim is currently in the United States where he co-founded Parlio. Ghonim made headlines back in Cairo after he was appointed at The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School as a senior fellow.
Of course the Pro-regime supporters do not like that news and they got even their own theories on Harvard University is the breeding nest of spies against Egypt after having Bassem Youssef and then Nader Bakkar , now they got the Wael Ghonim of Kolena Khaled Said Facebook page that started the 25 Jan revolution with a Facebook event invitation in Harvard too.
Back to Tahrir academy , despite it was a top YouTube educational channel in Egypt and the Arab world, there was not much media exposure about it in Egypt but its team worked hard to made it successful and internationally recognized.
I consider the closure of Tahrir academy a true setback because that top educational YouTube Channel is truly helping quietly in shaping the future of Egypt by simply investing in education in the simplest way ever.
I consider this decision as another setback for January 25 revolution also because after all those youth who made this promising project were the original #25Jan Tahrir square youth from protesters who wanted the best for their own people and yet they are being attack night and day now in the media.
I hope that the project continues somehow.  

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for shedding light on the closure of Tahrir Academy. However the current CEO is Seif Abou Zaid, he worked on building Tahrir Academy for the last 4 years.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I also pray that the projects continue.
    The January 25 Revolution in Egypt was a success to all Africans in other ways as well. And many of us are rooting for more successes of young Egyptian people, as a shining example to all of Africa that it is the right thing to stand up for your rights.

    Thanks so much.

    ReplyDelete

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