Khebez w Meleh

Rebel is how I like to define myself.Growing up in a systematic world,I have made it my mission to defy the system and its' norms.I grew up with an infinite passion for mathematics and physics.While the educational system tried to indoctrinate me with how things ought to be,I found myself challenging all assumptions and intuitions,and asking "why?"continuously.Besides my passion to physics,I found a lot of freedom in entrepreneurship and I have expressed myself freely by coming up with a social enterprise that is designed to create change sustainably.My social enterprise have showed success in many dimensions and thus I got a chance to become a trainer and assistant in a leadership program(YLP) to help youth map what's between the covers of their books into solving the world's most challenging problems.I will not stop questioning and I will do my best to achieve success by empowering humans around the globe. 

In today's unprecedented reality, inequalities are prevalent both locally within one's country, and globally between developed and developing countries. Accordingly, our social enterprise "Khebez w Meleh" aims at shifting the mindsets of humans from a judgement point of view to a more empathetic and loving point by allowing them to be immersed in each other's lives for a few days, weeks, and even months while forming memories and bonds beyond borders. Technically,we offer an easy to use web-platform connecting culture-seekers with families. By that, we are providing cultural seekers with affordable, unique and authentic rural experience while flourishing the livelihoods of families mainly in villages and rural areas.We at Khebez w Meleh envision social cohesion and reduced inequalities locally and globally.We envision achievements in economic, social, environmental sustainability and food security. We envision a future where humans are more connected to nature and to each other.

 Inequalities are prevalent both on  global scale between developing and developed countries and within a country itself. We live in a divided world, we are categorized based on race, culture, and the area we come from. These divisions originate from the lack of understanding of our differences and lack of acceptance of our diversity. Also, opportunities tend to be centered in some locations usually cities and absent in others.This is a worldwide problem and has so far contributed to losing connections and bonds not only between us as humans but also with nature which is the source of all knowledge and spirituality. 

In our social enterprise “Khebez w Meleh”, we aim at investing in smallholders and family farmers by helping them generate revenue through empowering them to host local and international tourists. Technically,we offer an easy to use web-platform connecting local or international tourists with rural households.By that, providing culture-seekers with affordable, unique and authentic rural experience while flourishing the livelihoods in abandoned areas.My goal is to give every human the feeling that he/she has a family wherever he/she goes. We at Khebez w Meleh envision social cohesion and reduced inequalities locally and globally.We envision achievements in economic, social, environmental sustainability and food security. We envision a future where humans are more connected to nature and to each other.

This project addresses a worldwide problem. It starts by shifting the mindsets of people aged[18-42] and then affects the upcoming generations. It also aims at improving the livelihoods of families in villages who are have low income by making use of the beautiful nature and the potential of investing in tourism especially ecotourism and agritourism. Our model basically comes from what is called pro-poor tourism. By that we are providing culture-seekers with affordable unique authentic experience while improving the livelihoods in villages.

I was celebrating Youth International day at UN Escwa where I formed a team to work on reducing inequalities in Lebanon.I started by asking them the question "How is inequality revealed in your lives ? They answered by(jobs based on religion,opportunities centered in cities..).I stopped and asked myself"why do people in Lebanon hire based on religion? " After few researches "fear" was the answer.Leaders support companies based on their affiliation and try to make people support them by indoctrinating in them the fear of the other. So,I looked into the geographical distributions of religions on the map and I noticed how separated people are. so if they don't know one another they surely will judge one another and this is how I thought of Khebez w Meleh . Living in another's shoes to experience different lives, opportunities and conditions. By that shifting humanity from judgmental to more empathetic and empowering relationships.

In my daily life,I listen to many people judging one another. This disturbs me and I always try to help the  judging person shift his/her perspective to truly understand the other and empower them instead of judging. I truly believe that the way to elevate humanity is through interdependent relations where we all empower each other.

As soon as I have graduated high school I have attended so many hackathons, workshops, challenges and boot camps that aim at solving modern problems and making the world a better place. I also joined the fifth cohort of the Youth Leadership program done by the UNDP where I won an incubation program with injaz and Berytech. I also was accepted to become a YLP advisory board member where I was part of leading the program.I also joined one of the partners (Riyada for social Innovation) as a trainer and assistant.All these experiences have helped me lead teams,build connections,manage projects, learn by training and thus grow as a person.

My team didn’t believe in my idea, at the beginning this disappointed me but this didn’t stop me. In fact, I met the founder and mentor of Riyada after the workshop is done and that’s when she fell in love with the idea and showed me how successful it can get. She also invited me to join her workshop happening in a week back then. So I joined and won the first prize!! Even then, most people kept on telling me that it doesn’t work, and the more they told me it is impossible the more I believed in it. This is how Khebez w Meleh journey started! Believing in it and believing that if it was a trivial idea everyone would have done it.

I never assigned my goals, I make my team members do. Throughout my experience I have always made sure that all the goals we are working towards are relevant and excite all my team members as much as they excite me. I made sure that everyone shares my vision and are passionate about them as much as I am. I always kept track of performance, achievements and listened to my team members’ concerns and feedbacks. Recently, we faced a conflict where two of my team members suggested a voting strategy! I couldn’t accept such a proposal since I believe that decision making is done as a team and not based on the number of votes. Here I asked them for a video call and discussed the pros and cons of such a system. I ended up convincing them and they ended up with a shifted mindset. 

My project is centered around humans.It basically empowers the poor by offering them opportunities to host the rich. We are depending on naturally existing resources and work on shifting the mindset of people through   experience.

We are thinking of 3 revenue model streams:

Transaction enabler: We take a percentage of the housing rent from the visitor at the host.

Fee for services: we will be doing activities for the public or people in the village and the guests, some of those activities are free for all and their aim is to increase our community others will generate revenue and are free only for our guests only.

Subscription model: This model is for people who would like to regularly have a unique experience. Those people might subscribe to have every weekend week or month (each time in a different place or might be in the same place upon their request).

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