The Vision to See Opportunity | Care for 24

The Vision to See Opportunity

Olfa Hamdi founded Care for 24 because, where others might have seen only struggle, she had the imagination to perceive opportunity.

She saw both struggle and opportunity in looking at her North African home country, Tunisia. Hamdi proudly calls it “the Arab world’s only democracy.” She likes to point out that the Arab Spring, which briefly promised a surge of democracy throughout the region, originated in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid in December 2010.

Hamdi is prominent enough in Tunisia to have once been shortlisted for Minister of Foreign Affairs. But today, seated in her company offices in Palo Alto and Washington, D.C., and surveying the road Tunisia has traveled since the heady days of the Arab Spring, she sees a need to work outside of government to bring better times to her country.

She intends to do that by working on behalf of the nation’s children, who need serious help: 100,000 Tunisian children leave school early every year, a staggering number in a country of fewer than 12 million people.

Tunisia presents a case study in the fragility of formal democratic structures that are not supported by a stable economic foundation. Mohamed Bouazizi, the street vendor whose self-immolation ignited the Arab Spring protests, sought to dramatize his country’s lack of economic opportunity. Unfortunately, the lack has deepened over the last decade, feeding the frustrations of Bouazizi’s countrymen and perhaps putting their democracy in danger.

Having experienced firsthand how the entrepreneur-friendly climate of the United States can promote individual success, Hamdi is determined to help create the conditions that can give young Tunisians an economic foundation resistant to the threat of radicalization, violence, and desperation for youth. The stability of the economic foundation will depend on education.

Olfa Hamdi with a group of Tunisian Youth Providing Career and Educational Advice (Gafsa, 2012)

Care for Diversity

The name of Hamdi’s nonprofit, Care for 24, hints at the meticulous approach that she and the organization’s Board are taking to improving the future of Tunisia’s children. The “24” corresponds to the number of the nation’s governorates, i.e., provinces, regions or states. This allusion to diversity reflects Care for 24’s commitment to careful examination of the different conditions that obtain in different parts of the country. For example, Hamdi comes from the mining region of Gafsa, a governorate located almost precisely in Tunisia’s geographic center. Gafsa’s present conditions, and future opportunities, are distinct from those two hundred miles to the north in Tunis, the nation’s cosmopolitan capital and gateway to the Mediterranean.

Zoubeir Lafhaj, dean of the renowned construction engineering program at Centrale Lille, a Tunisian who is originally from the famous southern region of Tatooine, says: “Regional disparity in Tunisia is not only economic, it has become a cultural and a political disparity, and to change the country’s future, we need to change this reality and ou kids’ perception of it”

“Because of the diversity of Tunisia,” Hamdi says, “the three pillars of Care for 24 must be research, correction, and prevention. Of course, the point is to correct the problems and prevent them from returning. But in my business career, I’ve seen over and over again that you can’t correct and prevent problems without doing the research that shows you exactly what the problems are.”

The deep dive by Care for 24 into understanding Tunisia’s problems begins with the unsettling surface data. Of 12 million residents, 1.8 million, or 15%, are of school age (6 to 17). The fact that over 7% of these children have jobs though they are also registered to attend school, while another 3% have already left school to join the workforce, highlights an alarming truth about the Tunisian economy. With fewer than one out of three college graduates able to find employment, young people encounter severe pressure to get a head start on wage-earning, as well as to help out parents who also struggle to make adequate incomes.

Grounds for Optimism

However, Hamdi has not built her career success by focusing on obstacles. Besides Tunisia’s challenges, she sees its potential and a path forward. She notes that Tunisia ranks 17th among 182 nations in providing the legal framework to respect the rights of children—better than Japan, Ireland, or Canada!

Thus, Tunisians have the will to create a better future for their children. If the means are lacking to create that better future, Hamdi believes it is only a matter of time before Care for 24 will develop the means. The coronavirus pandemic limits the Care for 24 team’s capacity for face-to-face contact with Tunisian kids. But via social media, and in collaboration with local radios and media outlets, the team is doing research throughout the country’s 24 governorates into how to encourage children, despite the temptation to drop out of school, to continue learning. On a planet whose future depends on interconnection built on trust and bolstered by education, Care for 24 will emphasize the English fluency and entrepreneurial skills needed to link Tunisians to the wider world.

The dedication of Care for 24’s team comes from the assurance that people who respect and love their children the way Tunisians do will enjoy countless more success stories rivaling that of Olfa Hamdi.