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'Clickfunding' idea transforms lives of Egyptian poor

Al Jendaya - The dramatic improvement in Menhom's life came through a joint campaign with the Unicef to supply running water to 1,000 homes in southern Egypt.

Egyptian mother Aaz Menhom cups her hands under a running tap in her yard to let her young children Atef and Nada drink.
"It's a blessing from God. I was bathing them once every four days, now they can wash every day," she says, beaming broadly.
Menhom, 27, whose family share a sparsely-furnished one-room home with her sister and five nephews, used to have to ask for water at neighbours' doors.
Armed with a bucket, she had to repeat the exhausting process several times a day just so she could do her daily chores.
But all that has now changed as a result of clickfunding, a concept launched in Egypt by a startup business, Bassita, that has transformed Menhom's life for the better. Bassita, which means "simple" in Arabic, is harnessing the growing Internet penetration in the country and raising funds through social networking campaigns.
It posts photos and videos of micro-development projects, and sponsors undertake the funding once a certain number of shares and "likes" are raised.
"You're one click away from changing the world," reads a banner on the bassita.org website, founded in 2014 by two Frenchmen in their 30s who have settled in Cairo, Alban Menonville and Salem Massalha.
The goal is to "revolutionise" online advertising, said Menonville. "If I want Facebook advertising to reach a million people, Facebook will ask me a price," he said.
"Instead of paying it to Facebook the idea is to pay it for something positive, and the Internet user will provide visibility," he said. Partnered with a Cairo optician, it campaigned in 2014 to fund 1,000 pairs of spectacles for craftsmen and women, including embroiderers in the impoverished Fayoum province, southwest of Cairo.
The dramatic improvement in Menhom's life came through a joint campaign with the Unicef to supply running water to 1,000 homes in southern Egypt.
About 7.5 million people in Egypt have no access to clean water in their homes.

baghdad - Suicide attacks targeting security forces in two Baghdad suburbs have killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens, officials said on Sunday.
A suicide car bomb struck a checkpoint in the eastern suburb of Hussainiyah late on Saturday, killing six civilians and four soldiers, a police officer said. He added that another 28 people were wounded in the attack. The Daesh group claimed the attack in a statement posted on a militant website.
Another police officer said a suicide car bomb struck a passing military convoy at around the same time in the southern suburb of Arab Jabour, killing four soldiers and wounding eight others.
A day earlier, a suicide attack on a mosque in the southwestern suburb of Radwaniyah killed 13 worshippers and wounded 35 others, a police officer said.
Three medical officials confirmed the casualty figures from the weekend attacks.
Iraqi forces backed by US-led airstrikes have pushed Daesh back on a number of fronts in recent months, clawing back territory seized by the extremists during their sweep across northern and western Iraq in 2014.
But Daesh has continued to carry out attacks in and around Baghdad, mainly targeting security forces.
Meanwhile, Clashes between Kurdish and Turkmen paramilitary forces broke out late on Saturday in northern Iraq, killing at least eight people and cutting a strategic road between Baghdad and the oil city of Kirkuk, security and medical sources said.
Violence in Tuz Khurmatu, about 175 km north of the capital, has become a near monthly occurrence between the armed groups, uncomfortable allies against Daesh since driving the militants out of towns and villages in the area in 2014.
A small explosion just before midnight near the local headquarters of two rival political parties sparked armed exchanges between the communities that spread to most neighbourhoods and continued into Sunday morning, according to security sources.
Fighters launched mortars into densely populated areas and fired rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns at the opposing positions. Unverified photos showed flames engulfing a tank on a main road and heavy black smoke rising from a residential area.
Five fighters and three members of the Kurdish peshmerga forces, including a senior commander, were killed and at least two civilians, including a child, were wounded, security and hospital sources said.
The toll was expected to rise since snipers were preventing from transporting casualties to hospital.
The tensions risk further fragmenting Iraq, a major OPEC oil exporter, as it struggles to contain Islamic State, the biggest security threat since a United States-led invasion toppled autocrat Saddam Hussein in 2003. - Agencies
- AP