Sarah Toumi is a Tunisian entrepreneur, who has worked on reversing

desertification Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused by ...

in her home country.

Early life

Sarah Toumi was born in France; her father was Tunisian while her mother was French. While living in Paris in 2008, Sarah Toumi founded Dream, a networking scheme and incubator for environmental students.

Environmental work

After she returned to Tunisia in 2012, she founded of the Acacias for All project, which sought to fight the ongoing desertification of the country. Toumi had been inspired after visiting Bir Salah where her grandfather lived, and seeing the difference over a prolonged period of time that desertification and a lack of water had on the surrounding land. She saw the effect this had on local women, who were driven to work in poorly paid jobs in cities. After the Ministry of the Environment rejected the plan, she found that the Tunisian banks would not loan her any startup capital because she was female. She later explained, "Every time I got a no, it was a motivation for me. It dawned on me that I would fight for women's equal rights in society and that Acacias for All should be the first step". Instead, she crowdfunded for money, gaining 3,000

Euros The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . T ...

. Toumi adapted it to enable local farmers to use the

acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...

s to generate an income source through selling the

gum Gum may refer to: Types of gum * Adhesive * Bubble gum * Chewing gum * Gum (botany), sap or other resinous material associated with certain species of the plant kingdom ** Gum arabic, made from the sap of ''Acacia senegal'', an Old World tree s ...

and the oil from drought-resistant

moringa Moringa may refer to: * ''Moringa'' (genus), a genus of plants * ''Moringa oleifera'', or just moringa, a plant species native to the Indian subcontinent * ''Moringa stenopetala'', a species in that genus commonly known as the African moringa Se ...

trees. Although she ensured that the initial farmers were all women, she realised that she wanted to see equality between both genders and included male farmers in the trade union formed through the work. For her work on this project, she was named as the only Arab or African person on the list of '' Forbes'' 30 entrepreneurs under 30 for 2016. The project has subsequently been called 1milliontrees4Tunisia, with Toumi becoming one of 30 winners of the

Rolex Awards for Enterprise Rolex SA () is a British-founded Swiss watch designer and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex'' as the brand name of ...

in 2016; the first time any Tunisian had won the prize. Toumi sees the use of trees to combat desertification as applicable globally. On November 25, 2017, Sarah Toumi received the Takreem Prize for Environmental Development and Sustainability in Amman. In October 2021, Sarah Toumi is developing a platform to digitize her model and thus improve the traceability of her projects in order to better be able to duplicate them. More than ever, the one who describes herself as "an explorer of a changing world" believes in the green revolution she wants to launch in Tunisia and beyond.

Social entrepreneurship

In 2011, together with

Hatem Mahbouli Hatem ( ar, حاتم) is a masculine Arabic given name, it may refer to: Given name * Hatem Ali, Syrian actor * Hatem Ben Arfa, French football player of Tunisian descent * Hatem Aqel, Jordanian footballer * Hatem Ali Jamadar, Bengali politic ...

and

Asma Mansour Asma Mansour ( ar, أسماء منصور) is a Tunisian entrepreneur and women's activist who in 2011 co-founded the Tunisian Center for Social Entrepreneurship. As a result, she was selected as one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2014. In June 2016, ...

, Toumi founded the Tunisian Center for Social Entrepreneurship, dedicated to making social entrepreneurship a basis for the Tunisian economy.

References

External links

ACACIAS for all website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Toumi, Sarah French environmentalists French women environmentalists Tunisian women Tunisian businesspeople Living people Tunisian people of French descent Tunisian women in business Year of birth missing (living people)