Egyptian mummy Aaz Menhom cups her hands in her yard to let her young kids under a running faucet Nada and Atef drink.

“It is a blessing from God. I was bathing them once every four days, now they are able to wash daily,” she says, grinning broadly.

27, whose family share a sparsely-furnished one-room house with five nephews and her sister, used to need to ask at neighbours’ doors for water.

Equipped with a pail, she had to duplicate many times a day to the exhausting procedure just so she could do her daily chores.

But all that’s changed as an effect of clickfunding, a theory found in Egypt by a startup company, Bassita, that’s transformed the life of Menhom for the better.

Bassita, which means “straightforward” in Arabic, is using the growing Internet penetration in the state and raising capital through social networking efforts.

It posts pictures and videos of micro-development projects, and patrons undertake the capital once a specific number of shares and “likes” are lifted.

The aim is to “revolutionise” online advertising, said Menonville.

“If I need Facebook marketing to reach a million individuals, Facebook will request me a cost,” he said.

“Instead of paying it to Facebook the thought would be to pay it for something positive, and the Internet user will supply visibility,” he said.

The firm has boasted success in other fields.

It campaigned in 2014 to finance 1,000 pairs of spectacles for craftsmen and including, girls embroiderers in the impoverished Fayoum province, southwest of Cairo.

Clicks for water
The remarkable progress in Menhom’s life came through a joint effort with the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to provide running water to 1,000 houses in southern Egypt.

A video showing the comic Maged al-Kedawny, together with the Arabic hashtag “a click links to water,” was seen on Facebook more than two million times in three days after the campaign’s start in February.

One hundred houses are linked to piped water since mid-March, based on UNICEF.

“In the next six months, 1,000 houses will be linked to water in four states,” said its Egypt representative, Bruno Maes.

The $170,000 job, which comprises a hygiene awareness programme. is being financed by several firms

Among the patrons are US giant SC Johnson, the Emirati ride hailing program Careem and Egypt’s Wadi Degla.