Story | In Egypt, under Article No 341, defaulting on a loan is a criminal act that carries a prison sentence. Every year tens ofthousands of women are sent to prison for defaulting on loans borrowed for a few hundred dollars. The punishment is severe to deter people from taking loans. However, many of women who borrow money are desperate,because they need to pay for life-saving surgeries, family emergencies, to buy medicine, or start a business. Even worse, there are loan officers who prey on these women, getting them to sign contracts they don’t understand or even fraudulently claiming that the installments have never been paid. |
Problem | To raise awareness about a topic no one cares about, the campaign jumped on the trend everyone was talking about, NFTs. Working with international artists, an NFT collection was created and released on the Blockchain, each piece inspired by the story of a woman sentenced to prison for defaulting on a loan, and priced at the amount needed to pay off her debt. With every piece sold, awareness around this topic spreads and a woman is freed from her sentence. Breakchains with Blockchain was launched on 21st March, 2022 – Mother’s Day in Egypt. The campaign went live with anNFT collection, released on the Blockchain platform, Opensea.io. This campaign combined the emotional and technological. Interviews were fi lmed with Al Gharemaat, allowing their voices tobe heard. From these stories, international artists created NFTs priced at the amount needed to pay off their debts and free them from their prison sentences. The NFT collection was displayed on our campaign website, published in Arabic and English. the NFTs was promoted on social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & Instagram), PR and our campaign website. By communicating in Arabic, they connected with the Egyptian audience, and in English we attracted the attention of the world. The hard work doesn’t stop here, the NGO is continuing to ensure there is rehabilitation & education so they do not end up inthis situation again. |