As a biomedical engineer at a multinational corporation, Leila Ben Gacem had a dream: to retire and pursue social entrepreneurship. As it turned out, “retirement” came sooner than expected—at age 30, she quit her job and dedicated herself to work that felt socially meaningful. Today, that decision has brought her to the medina of Tunis, where she is building more engaged, connected communities through her boutique hotel, Dar Ben Dacem.
After quitting her engineering job, Leila’s first venture into social entrepreneurship was helping women artisans export their carpets to the global market. Although the venture didn’t make her much money, Leila reflects on the time as one of valuable learning and experimentation.
“I was very happy,” Leila says. “I wasn’t making a lot of money, but I felt like I had found my place.”
However, as she worked with the artisans, Leila began uncovering underlying issues in their business models. Despite the artisans improving their pricing strategies and financial management, they weren’t marketing their products as part of their family and national heritage—a story many consumers value.
“Products don’t sell themselves,” Leila explains. “But when you share the story—how many women worked from home to make this piece—suddenly the product becomes part of the narrative. People aren’t just buying an object, they’re buying into the story.”
Having observed the intimate connections between heritage and craftsmanship, Leila became convinced that Tunisia’s history needed to be integrated into the country’s businesses—and not just because it would make for better marketing. Through their crafts, artisans preserve, share, and celebrate Tunisia’s history. Without them, that history is at risk of disappearing.
“We unconsciously create and delete new heritage every day,” Leila says. “What we decide to preserve or not preserve changes with what’s happening in the world, the geopolitics, and a lot of other things—it’s dynamic.”
Troubled by fast-paced social changes that threatened to displace centuries-old practices, Leila wanted to create a business that wouldn’t just be profitable for owners and shareholders, but for the community. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Tunis medina is a unique embodiment of Tunisian heritage—but it also faces many risks, including the neglect of historic architecture and the declining profitability of traditional trades.
“I think that business needs to be profitable—but profit is not just financial,” Leila says. “Creating businesses that balance financial return with social, community, and environmental impact should be just as important as the financial return itself.”
So when Leila discovered a run-down house for sale in the medina, she knew she had a chance to realize her vision. Upon stepping into the house’s courtyard for the first time, she wasn’t just struck by its physical beauty. She was also acutely aware of the building’s social history—the weddings, funerals, and innumerable gatherings that had happened right where she was standing. In that moment, she felt obligated to revitalize the home’s legacy as a place where people gather, exchange, and find support.
As a social enterprise, Leila’s project was community-sourced from its very foundation. After purchasing the building with the help of loans from her family, Leila set to work restoring it, employing artisans from the medina to help with the ironworks, tiling, and décor. Today, Dar Ben Gacem maintains a network of reciprocity with diverse local businesses, as all of the hotel’s furniture, groceries, and even door keys are sourced from a walking radius of the hotel. Additionally, a sizable portion of profits is reinvested into programs for greening initiatives, workshops, and youth programs.
Young people are a key group in Dar Ben Gacem’s social ecosystem. Tunisia has a high secondary school dropout rate, so student employees are supported by their coworkers to continue their studies. Leila emphasizes the importance of giving multiple chances to young people and putting full faith in their desire to grow.
“Sometimes you give young people a chance, but it’s not the right time, or the circumstances aren’t right,” she says. “But I believe everyone wants to grow in life, especially young people. If you give them patience and another chance, eventually one or two seize it—and that makes me happy.”
The need to focus on younger demographics also stems from the fact that young professionals increasingly look outside of Tunis for economic opportunities. Unfortunately, this carries the risk that the next generation of Tunisians become disconnected from their heritage or feel that working in their home country is at odds with their individual well-being. Dar Ben Gacem demonstrates that, on the contrary, Tunisia’s heritage can be a source of both personal pride and economic opportunity for the community.
Leila will never forget the moment a Dar Ben Gacem guest asked the hotel’s youngest employee what the hotel meant to him. “He responded, ‘I used to think that for my life to be better, I had to leave the Medina. But now I realized we can make it better here now,” Leila recalls. “If you make just one person feel that way, what more profits could you ask for?”
By bringing new groups into the maintenance and economic well-being of their community, Dar Ben Gacem also promotes an active model of citizenship. For women in particular, financial independence opens the door to greater empowerment in other parts of their lives.
“If the economics of your life are not in your own hands, decisions about voting, children, or your future aren’t really yours either,” Leila says.
Her projects in the Medina include creating safe, inclusive public spaces where women and girls can gather, learn, and participate fully in civic life. The result benefits everyone: communities with empowered women are safer and have more active political engagement.
“When people understand why the common good makes us all win, they become contributors to better living conditions in their communities,” Leila says. “You belong there; it becomes your place. And as a result, you have a role in that place as well.”
Despite the wide-reaching impact of Dar Ben Gacem’s impact in the medina, Leila insists on taking life in little steps.
“I don’t have big dreams,” she says. “I take life one step at a time, trying to make things better. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, I’m happy I tried. If it does, I push it a little further.”
By creating reciprocal networks with local craftspeople, focusing on women’s and youth’s civic engagement, and putting Tunisian heritage at the center of her business, Leila proves that social entrepreneurship is not only possible but sustainable.
“Financial profit is not more important than people, community, and environment,” she says. “I want to show that that model is possible—in the business sense and in the social impact sense. It’s not just powerful, it’s necessary.”