In Egypt, under Article No 341, defaulting on a loan is a criminal act that carries a prison sentence. Every year tens of thousands of women are sent to prison for defaulting on loans borrowed for a few hundred dollars.

The punishment is severe to deter people from taking loans. However, many women who borrow money are desperate, because they need to pay for life-saving surgeries, family emergencies, to buy medicine, or start a business. Even worse, there are loan officers who prey on these women, getting them to sign contracts they don’t understand or even fraudulently claiming that the installments have never been paid. Prison is not the answer to this problem.

This is a social problem with far-reaching consequences. These women are separated from their children, which often leads these kids falling between the cracks and turning to crime and drugs from a young age.

Breakchains with Blockchain is the first NFT collection that frees women from prison sentences.

To raise awareness about a topic no one cares about, we jumped on the trend everyone is talking about, NFTs.

Working with international artists, an NFT collection was created and released on the Blockchain, each piece inspired by the story of a woman sentenced to prison for defaulting on a loan, and priced at the amount needed to pay off her debt.

With every piece sold, awareness around this topic spreads and a woman is freed from her sentence.

Breakchains with Blockchain was launched on 21st March 2022 – Mother’s Day in Egypt. The campaign went live with an NFT collection, released on the Blockchain platform, Opensea.io.

This campaign combined the emotional and technological. Interviews were filmed with Al Gharemaat, allowing their voices to be heard. From these stories, international artists created NFTs priced at the amount needed to pay off their debts and free them from their prison sentences.

The NFT collection was displayed on our campaign website, and published in Arabic and English. We promoted the NFTs on social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & Instagram), PR, and our campaign website. By communicating in Arabic, we connected with the Egyptian audience, and in English, we attracted the attention of the world.

The hard work doesn’t stop here, the NGO is continuing to ensure there is rehabilitation & education so they do not end up in this situation again.

Breakchains with Blockchain changed the lives of real women, giving them a second chance. Our ambition was to release women, but our goal was to raise awareness to create real change: +100 million engagement +26 million people reached +$10 million earned media

Most importantly, 17 women were freed in the first weeks of the campaign.

This campaign has inspired change, for the first time 60 parliament members signed a bill committing to changing the law, giving hope to Al Gharemaat.