Jehan’s first foray into public service began in the late 1960s, when she was inspired to help several women she had met in a rural village called Talla in the Nile Delta region, who were desperate for money. She set up a co-operative that enabled them to become skilled in sewing and economically independent from their husbands. What started out as 25 sewing machines in an abandoned building turned into a much larger scale production line, with over 100 women making 4,000 uniforms a day for factory workers.
