EDF in September

Local Community Development: From Khorramshahr to Zahedan

Through the efforts of local NGO Bahar -e- Khorramshahr, EDF, and trained local facilitators, a group of women in Sarhanieh, peripheral settlements of Khoramshahr city, managed to initiate a collective business. These hardworking women are now running a local mask production workshop which is going to respond to the need of the city during the pandemic. Previously they had received several trainings.

Following 2018, and 2019, EDF provided members of the Negin Group (children and young adults of Hoda House in Zahedan) with an intensive summer internship program. The program varies from tailoring to car mechanic workshops.

Training Local Facilitators: a path to institutionalization

One of EDF’s goals is to familiarize local facilitators with business approaches, facilitation concepts, and skills. COVID-19 related travel restrictions resulted in an extensive decline of workshops and training programs conducted by central NGOs in peripheral regions. EDF has taken an opportunity to design and online collective learning platform specifically aimed at community facilitation. The project is currently under the initiation phase.

Youth Empowerment: it’s all about work-life harmony!

Specialized webinar series “operational planning for the resilience of small and micro businesses in the Covid-19 pandemic crisis” was held for a group of small business owners with priorities given to women from underserved areas of Iran. At the end of these webinars, participants are expected to write an executive summary of their business plan.​