As Nadia Gamal El-Din sat in her coral-colored office adorned with iconic female figures and inspirational quotes, she recalled her experience giving birth at age 24. She remembers looking at her baby Yassin as she lay in the hospital bed recovering from a Cesarean delivery and feeling overwhelmed with questions about motherhood. None of her friends were mothers yet, and she didn’t know where to turn for support.
Nadia assumed that there would be an online community she could join to talk to other mothers, get advice, and feel less alone. But to her surprise, no online community for new Egyptian moms existed, despite it being the world’s oldest profession and Egypt’s massive population of over 100 million.
“I was so frustrated, but then I decided to do something about it,” Nadia recalled. She wasted no time; as she lay in her hospital bed holding her newborn baby, she started a Facebook group. She called her pediatrician and gynecologist to her hospital room and asked them to log onto the group and reply to questions moms ask about their baby’s health. Nadia then shared the group to her own page with the message: “If you are a mom, this group is for you.”
After only one month, the group had 3,000 members. Her idea to bring moms together was working – Egyptian moms were discussing issues related to their kids or themselves, asking questions, and getting reliable answers from specialists. As the page exploded, Nadia began to recruit more professionals from various fields to serve as resources to the community.
Fast forward seven years to 2021, Rahet Bally has bloomed into a public-facing brand and platform receiving an average of 25 million moms visiting the Facebook page each month. As Nadia said, “That means 25 million moms accessing resources, gaining positivity and togetherness, making new friends and booking playdates, knowing which trusted services to use for doctors and experts, finding the right books to buy, and which schools to attend.”
Rahet Bally literally means “peace of mind” in Arabic; the organization’s goal is for every mother in Egypt to have the necessary tools and support to give birth and raise their children.
Rahet Bally boasts that they are Egypt’s #1 all-inclusive motherhood support platform. By offering financial, emotional, physical, and social services, Nadia and her team are building a robust community that prioritizes moms’ needs.
For example, the Rahet Bally team knows motherhood is extremely expensive. Essential items such as diapers, formula, and doctor visits can easily overwhelm a new mom. Rahet Bally helps offset the huge costs of essential items through their rewards card program that gives moms exclusive deals in 1,300 stores and services including supermarkets, clinics, and schools. The card costs 300 LE a year and accumulates thousands of pounds of savings a year. They also offer exercise classes tailored to fit all stages of a mother’s life from pregnancy through menopause.
But Rahet Bally’s claim to fame is its bustling online community and huge following on their social media sites. This massive following can be attributed to relatable, honest content available in both English and Arabic. The two masterminds behind content creation are Arabic Editor-in-Chief Shaymaa El-Gammal and English Editor-in-Chief Dina Hashish who also leads the company’s thriving TikTok page.
Together, they produce content for moms, ranging from school lunch ideas to what to expect at 13 weeks of pregnancy, both through Rahet Bally’s expansive social media presence and their in-house online publication, Mom’s Mag.
The TikTok videos Dina produces on Rahet Bally’s page garner millions of views from countries across the Arab region and often portray the daily struggles and messiness of motherhood. Dina said, “I try to be as relatable as possible. I reject the idea of the perfect mother with the perfect mom with the perfect outfit and job and at the same time, the kid’s lunch box is perfect and she makes dinner for the whole family. Khalas, (enough) motherhood is chaotic.”
But, these videos are not purely for entertainment. Videos often feature advice from parenting experts, sex therapists, gynecologists, and more. How Rahet Bally utilizes TikTok as an educational tool got the attention of TikTok itself.
Rahet Bally was pioneering a new category for the Middle East and North Africa region dubbed “edutainment,” a mix between education and engaging content, and TikTok wanted to collaborate. The result was a huge campaign called “Family First” that taught parents how to protect their kids on TikTok. Rahet Bally took over TikTok in the Arab World; the nine videos produced averaged 3 million views each.
Aside from providing a lively online community, Rahet Bally offers moms a physical community as well. Aptly called “The Cloud,” Rahet Bally claims that this complex is the world’s first place designed specifically for moms. Equipped with a salon, napping pods, office space, and a cafe, the Cloud offers moms the chance to socialize, have meetings, access psychotherapy, attend workshops, and more–all while their child is being looked after by the daycare service.
The overwhelming traction gained over the years also shows the demand for these services. Nadia has successfully scaled out, an impact mechanism that aims to reach large numbers (25 million to be exact) of moms.
Nadia and her team at Rahet Bally have successfully positioned themselves as the leading authority on moms’ needs while making their services accessible to as many moms as possible. To increase accessibility, Rahet Bally offers a platform called “Ana Hamel” or “I am pregnant,” which supports moms from lower-income communities. This pregnancy platform is entirely in Arabic and tailored to reach communities with lower literacy rates. Workshops on Ana Hamel cover topics such as birth control, legal rights of mothers, parenting 101, sexual relationships, postpartum depression, lactation, and more. So far, more than 50,000 mothers from these communities have been supported.
Rahet Bally’s services benefit mothers at an affordable cost due to its powerful business-to-business (B2B) model. The head of B2B operations is Nadine El Sherbiny. She explained, “Our B2B is the engine of the company. We have evolved into an agency, both digitally and on the ground that brands love working with. We have the community and the insight into what moms like and need.” That means all services offered to the consumers (mothers) are subsidized or free of charge.
The idea for Rahet Bally, which was born alongside Nadia’s son Yassin six years ago, has proven that while motherhood is no walk in the park, it can be much less challenging with proper support from a community that cares. Just like Kleenex is the eponym for tissues, Rahet Bally is now synonymous with motherhood in Egypt.
By Audrey Lodes
