The Association for the Development and Enhacement of women

In the mid-1980s, a group of development professionals launched a pioneer micro-finance project in the community of traditional Cairene garbage collectors, Zaballeen. The project was the first of its kind in Egypt and was lauded for making credit accessible to a marginalized community that otherwise had no access to financial services. During the course of the project, the project organizers recognized a unique opportunity to replicate the project's success in additional low-income areas of Cairo. They networked with other development professionals and together identified a target group that was particularly vulnerable: low-income women of female-headed households. In 1987, these twenty men and women officially created the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW). The Association registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs as a private, voluntary, non-governmental organization, and the first ADEW office opened in the low-income area of Manshiet Nasser.

ADEW believes that the status of Female Heads of Households (FHHs)

a traditionally neglected and disempowered segment of Egyptian society, can only be enhanced by empowering these women socially , legally and economically .

By providing women with the economic opportunities and working as mediators between women and various governmental and private agencies , ADEW delivers women's voice to the national consciousness.