International visitors: Mideast Creatives from Egypt, Tunisia and Lebanon

This 'Mideast Creatives in the Netherlands' (MEC in NL) visit is part of the Mideast Creatives programme, in which DutchCulture and Hivos are cooperating to support the development of creative co-working spaces in the MENA region. Main topic of this visit is Crafts and Innovation. The delegation will visit the Dutch Design Week, participate in an expert meeting on global cultural connections and visit organisations in the field of arts and crafts.

Our guests are:

• Peri A. Abou Zied, founder of Thaat social enterprise & innovative consultancy in Cairo. The mission of Thaat is empowering local artisans (especially girls and women) to maintain a sustainable livelihood, improving the productivity, design, quality and diversification of local handicrafts, reviving and preserving old traditional handicrafts and supporting up and coming design talents.
• Leila Ben-Gacem, of Blue Fish in Tunis. Blue Fish is an organisation working in the field of cultural heritage preservation, people and space empowerment and sustainibility. Leila also works for Dar Ben Gacem, a social enterprise that supports cultural preservation while providing an authentic Tunisian experience.
• Samer Saade is working in the middle of the industrial zone of Beirut, surrounded by many old craftsmen in factories and trying to connect the young generation of designers with traditional crafts and skills of old craftsmen. He has a background in archicture and product design.

For more information about our guests or their programme, please contact Judith Veraart of Sophie Logothetis.

About Mideast Creatives in the Netherlands
MEC in NL are working visits to the Netherlands for makers and maker spaces from the Mideast Creatives network. The aims of the visit are knowledge and creative exchange, broadening and strengthening the network of makers, creative co-working spaces and elaboration on topics and issues arisen from one of the previous activities of Mideast Creatives programme (i.e. Disrupt! s and the Co-working Summit in Tunis 2015). DutchCulture, as a partner in the Mideast Creatives programme has the opportunity to invite nine people from the network to the Netherlands in 2016.

The first visit in June 2016 was all about the subject ‘ownership’ for creative co-working spaces. Four founders of these spaces came to the Netherlands, worked on a case and visited several Dutch makerspaces. See: Start small, build up gradually:creative incubators in the Arab region