“Our mission is to empower women through breaking the social stereotypes and social stigma of women riding scooters and bicycles in conservative societies like Egypt,”
-Menna Farouk
Menna Farouk - Co-founder of Dosy - Egypt
2023 WE Empower Finalist, Middle East and North Africa
Menna Farouk is a journalist, filmmaker, and entrepreneur at heart. She is a correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation and has founded a number of startups that focus on empowering and creating jobs for women. Dosy, her startup which teaches women how to ride scooters and bicycles in a society that frowns upon it, is one of them. She has faced criticism online for this endeavor, as it is taboo for women in Egypt and other Arab countries to ride scooters and bicycles, but she believes in her cause and hasn’t wavered from it.
Breaking Down Barriers
The primary SDG that Farouk’s company addresses is number 5, Gender Equality. In a society where women are discouraged from riding bikes and scooters due to a myriad of reasons, their immobility also limits their opportunities to do other things, such as work, move, or complete their tasks more efficiently. Farouk says, “Women in Egypt and Arabic and African countries don’t ride scooters and bicycles because of social stereotypes, lack of scooters and female instructors, and other problems like sexual harassment.” Using these modes of transportation isn’t only looked down upon, in the process of trying to learn women can face a number of different challenges, one of them being sexual harassment at the hands of male instructors. Dosy helps to mitigate these challenges, providing an online platform where women can be matched with female instructors in their area and timing arranged at their discretion.
Maximizing Their Potential
The next goal of their enterprise is to expand both their reach and their services. They hope to establish operations in countries that face similar challenges, such as Jordan, India, and Togo. Additionally, in the next phase of their services, they plan to launch a delivery app that employs female workers. The delivery market in Egypt is rapidly growing but doesn't yet include women or let them participate in this expanding industry. Dosy’s goal is to create jobs for one million Egyptian women and integrate them into the micro mobility sector. This is on top of already providing jobs to the female instructors at their company. In this way, the company addresses SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). Farouk says, “Dosy provides job opportunities for women who have the skillset to ride scooters and bikes by enabling them to become instructors and by engaging them in the delivery and courier service sector.”
A Green Operation
Even among all the other good the company does, Dosy still finds the time and resources to prioritize the environment in their operations. “We are substituting gas-powered scooters and motorcycles in our training sessions with environmentally friendly electric scooters in order to preserve the environment and promote sustainable means of transportation,” Farouk says. They promote the 11th SDG (Sustainable Cities and Communities) in this way, by both utilizing more sustainable alternatives and teaching their clients to use these methods as well.
Dosy not only teaches women and girls to ride scooters and bikes, but also deliberately addresses many United Nations SDGs, from gender equality to promoting sustainable cities and communities.
By Samantha Chapman, WE Empower Intern