Raghda Butros

Hamzet Wasel

Hamzet Wasel is a social venture that works to revive and enrich the social cultural fabric of urban communities in the Arab region, beginning with Amman and other cities in Jordan. Hamzet Wasel is a platform for diversity, activism and inclusion with the purpose of tackling the complex challenges and exploring the unique opportunities that exist within the communities and cities where we operate. At Hamzet Wasel, we connect people together and create, harness and launch new ideas and thinking processes for social, cultural and urban activism. We then invest in and incubate these ideas to accelerate social change that places diverse, active, engaged and responsible citizens at the heart of the development process. We work with members of urban communities to jointly create solutions that preserve the social and cultural heritage of their neighborhoods, while protecting them against degradation. We also add our voices to that of the community to advocate decision-makers for human-centric urban planning and development. Additionally, we organize "urban discovery challenges" for both adults and children to come together in diverse groups to explore new people and places in their communities and cities and uncover their cultural heritage and urban realities. Underpinning all our efforts is a documentation process to record and preserve the stories of communities and cities, and the history of their people through writing, photography, filmmaking, blogs and social media.