Not too long ago, Hivos’ Mideast Creatives programme posted about the collaborative spaces challenge we worked on through our partner Zoomaal, the Arab crowdfunding platform, to support the creation and growth of such spaces in Arab countries. The challenge resulted in a very competitive battle. In the end, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria and Iraq qualified to continue and compete for $60.000 in matched funding.

Initially, only the five countries with the most enablers would be allowed to compete, but because of the overwhelming response, a sixth country was added. Despite their war-torn realities and political turmoil, all six managed to transform what was supposed to be a pre-registration phase into a movement of people eager to grow and build something in their country.

Collaborative space project proposals from Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria and Iraq will now be able to compete for matched funding of $10,000 per country. These projects are starting their crowdfunding campaigns on Zoomaal, and must finish their online application by 12 January 2015. Definitely a good way to start the New Year!

If you already have a collaborative space in one of these qualifying countries, or want to create one, go to the challenge page and apply with your project before the deadline.