Activists use social media to help slum-dwellers

A few months ago Mahmoud Salem, aged 30, used to sit at his laptop and join various online forums in a bid to help the effort to overthrow former President Hosni Mubarak.

Now, and after Mubarak is gone, Salem is back at his laptop, but this time as an activist of a different sort.

“I was always preoccupied with the political dimension of the Egyptian revolution. Now, however, I am focused on the humanitarian side.” Salem told IRIN.

Along with 19 other prominent bloggers in Egypt, Salem is trying to exploit social media for what he sees as positive change, and on 26 July the group launched what is believed to be Egypt’s first Twitter fundraising campaign to help slum-dwellers.

Tweetback’s first goal was to raise the equivalent of US$336,700 to improve living conditions in one of Cairo’s worst slums, Ezbet Khairallah, and managed to raise $218,855 in 10 days, proving that social media can play a positive role to alleviate poverty.

“When I visited this slum for the first time in my life, I talked to people about the importance of political participation, but I soon realized that the residents of this slum needed something else,” said Salem.

There are hundreds of slums in Egypt, including 420 “unsafe” ones, according to the National Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the government’s research arm.