A two-hour drive from the center of the ancient tourist city of Aswan lies what residents call the “Village of Women”.

Here, a group of single-story houses stands isolated in the desert – the next closest village is dozens of miles away. In these houses live families led by women who have lost their husbands, through death or divorce, and who are now rebuilding their lives together.

It’s a scenario that evokes the Amazons, the warriors of Greek myth who lived in a country where men were banned. Just like in the myth, the el-Samaha village is home to warriors, but of a modern kind, according to the “World Economic Forum” website.

“Life is better when you live with people who care about you,” says Nazira Moustafa, one of the first women to move into el-Samaha, which gets its name from the Arabic word for tolerance.

El-Samaha was founded in 1998 by the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and the World Food Program as a way to give widows and divorced women in Upper Egypt the chance to make their living and raise their children in a supportive community.

Promoting el-Samaha as a development project to empower women, the government invited applications and opened the village with a group of 303 women, each given land and a home, as well as goats, cows, buffaloes, and other animals to feed their families and sell for income. Mortgages in the village are subsidized by the government and are almost 80 percent lower than in the rest of the country.

In many ways, el-Samaha is a typical Egyptian village. It has a primary and preparatory school, a mosque, a medical center, a bakery, a drinking water station, a post office, and a youth center. While in most parts of the country, men would make the decisions and work to support their families, here men are in the minority, either the sons of residents or laborers who come from other villages to help build houses or facilities.

Unlike in the Amazon myth, there are no laws prohibiting men from entering el-Samaha village – the female residents point out that many of them have grown sons living with them, and daughters who have brought their husbands home with them.

“I believe that over time, the village will turn into a normal Egyptian village – having men and women living together,” el-Kashef says.

But for now, the village’s women relish the wider freedoms and increased independence they have, compared to women in many other parts of the country.

“I can do whatever I want – even if it is playing soccer, my passion,” says Aya, 11, who recently moved to the village with her family.

At her new home, surrounded by women who challenge stereotypes every day, Aya can dare to dream. “I want to become a physician to cure people,” she says.