Mostafa Habib, co-founder of VeryNile: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Mostafa Habaib (LinkedIn), co-founder of VeryNile. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Mostafa Habib, I’m 34. I graduated with a degree in architectural engineering. I used to work in marketing in the past, but I always had a dream to work in development. My grandmother and aunt used to work as pediatricians, so I always felt the need to help children too.

At some point, I felt like I wanted to stop jumping from one marketing firm to another and decided to take a step towards my dream. I packed and travelled to Aswan, where I lived for two or three months. There, I attempted to build a community school on Heisa Island near the Philae Temple. It was a good trial, but it failed. I wasn’t ready for it yet, but I ended up connecting with a development community and observing their work.

I then came back to Cairo, and I thought of how people are able to swim in the Nile in Aswan, but not in Cairo. I coincidentally met with two of my friends who have their own social enterprise — Bassita — that used to help NGOs and initiatives raise funds through clickfunding. I joined them, and we started building VeryNile in 2018.

We didn’t have direct funding when we first started — no one trusted our project. People were skeptical. There wasn’t enough awareness at the time in Egypt about environmental initiatives and cleaning. But, volunteering was a big trend, and this was one of the things we leveraged at the beginning.

We continued working on Bassita while looking for someone who believed in our idea. We talked to private and public sector players with no luck. That’s until I made a Facebook post introducing the idea of VeryNile and seeking contacts to fund the project.

We ended up reaching people at the UN’s International Organization for Migration, which expressed their interest and wanted to help. The organization provided us with financial support. We also partnered with Greenish, an environmental solutions provider that works on raising awareness about environmental solutions and providing the support and knowledge needed to help entrepreneurs launch their own green startups.

I think the turning point was the first event we held in December 2018, which was quite successful. Over 250 volunteers participated in the event and helped us collect 1.5 tons of waste in three hours. The event received widespread media coverage, and we ended up honored by the environment and irrigation ministries.

We collected over 100 tons of waste from the Nile during our first four years of operations. We have continued our cleanups, not only during events, but alongside fishermen and women who live on islands in Cairo and Assiut. We made more than 450 partnerships with the private sector, including partnerships with UN agencies.

The lotus flower started to flourish again on Qursaya island, where we used to work all the time — and that felt like the right time to end my journey with VeryNile.

Social development is very close to my heart. After exiting VeryNile, I decided that I wanted to work with orphanages. I’ve always volunteered in orphanages and always had my objections about some things that would happen there, so I decided to change that. I wrote a proposal to the Social Solidarity Ministry detailing my concerns, after which I was asked to join the ministry and handle corporate social responsibility and partnerships with the private sector, and so I did.

It’s been two years since I started working with the ministry, and I’m very grateful. I get to learn about the different numbers and statistics behind every area I want to work in, including the number of orphanages and elderly homes in the country, individuals with disabilities, and more. I’m currently in the learning phase.

The most popular causes at the moment are financial inclusion, economic empowerment, women empowerment, and early-childhood empowerment. This last one includes working with children starting at a young age, working with nurseries, focusing on educational inclusion, and shedding light on positive parenting — which is one of the biggest problems in the world, not just in Egypt.

I’m currently working on a project targeting women who crochet. A lot of women work in crochet, but no one is buying their products. We’re offering them vocational training to develop soft skills on how to market their product, manage their business, and more. We’re also working on a project targeting jasmine flower collectors.

The best thing about working in development is that one thing leads to another. Even a small effort often has a big impact on the community.

My morning routine usually starts with coffee. I have recently gotten into the habit of reading self-help books in the morning; I’m currently reading You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay. After a little bit of reading, I make affirmations, pray, and check up on my sister and her baby. Then, the day unfolds depending on my schedule. I try my best to make some time for my family, and at night I enjoy watching sports.

It’s important for me to always feel like my job has a purpose. Maybe I’m not always well-paid, but at least I feel satisfied with what I do. Even outside of work, I always like to give back.

I want to have my own thing soon, after learning everything I can from the ministry. I want to open a school for autistic children in Egypt. I also wish to open a consultancy agency that acts as a bridge between the private sector, the development sector, NGOs, and small businesses. On a personal level, I want to achieve those goals, buy a home in Aswan, and then move there.

We have the financial resources in Egypt, but those who have the money don’t know where and how to deploy it into development initiatives, and development initiatives don’t know how to reach the right investors.

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