A project to upcycle waste which is harmful for the environment to create home décor items and furniture pieces. This is the main idea behind BeitCOM, a recently born start-up in Palestine that found its origins in a therapeutic way to deal with stress and anxiety for her creator and now is setting up its green business model. Diaa’ Sbeihat is the founder of this innovative idea, who is receiving coaching support from GIMED.

“Through the sessions we learned how to pitch our ideas and present our ecological values”, shares Diaa’ Sbeihat. Through the project, Diaa’ hopes to set up an exhibition in Jenin and distribute her products to stores in Nablus and Bethlehem. Diaa’ is just one example of many creative visionaries in Palestine that have received support through this EU-funded project, under the ENI CBC MED Programme.

In addition to the Islamic calligraphy on her items, the products aim to maintain what is traditional and deep-rooted as a step to revive traditional art and culture. “We were taught how to budget and manage our project in detail”, adds Diaa’. Through Leaders International, the Palestinian partner of GIMED, it helps early-stage start-ups by guiding them to pay attention to details before pitching or starting their projects and ideas.

The key feature is supporting them to make them able to guarantee their sustainability, both technically and financially speaking. The discovery of financial independence to promote BeitCOM is the final output that Diaa’ is looking for, through the guidance and assistance of GIMED.

By fostering a conductive enabling environment for development, GIMED partners continue to steer entrepreneurship and innovation for climate action and overall environmental sustainability. The Switchmed methodology, used through all different training and coaching sessions and developed by the Regional Activity Center for Sustainable Production and Consumption (SCP/RAC), is helping green entrepreneurs find their way to settle and achieve their project goals.

In Palestine, Leaders brought experts and pioneers in ecopreneurship to deliver capacity building workshops to green early-stage startups. They then selected the best-performing 22 ventures, who now receive individual, need-based mentorship and advisory services in addition to group coaching sessions to solve common challenges. BeitCOM is part of this new cohort.