While Europeans are offering up houses to refugees, an Egyptian billionaire wants to buy an island where hundreds of thousands of refugees can live and work.

Naguib Sawiris is in the process of buying an island where he will help house some 200,000 Syrian refugees. “All I need is the permission,” said Sawiris, “I’ll pay for the island, I’ll provide the jobs.” The CEO promises to pay refugees to build their own houses and schools along with a hospital and universities.

Sawiris heads Orascom, a diverse company spanning transportation, construction, and communications, which is Egypt’s largest private sector employer. The Sawiris family has been active in helping Egyptians through their foundation for 14 years. It provides scholarships, training and job placement for people and awards prizes for Egyptian literature

Sawiris announced his plan to buy an uninhabited island from either Greece or Italy earlier this year and has expanded his list to 17 islands with a goal of determining which could support the most people. There are more than 1,200 Greek islands – fewer than 300 of them are populated though Sawiris has not identified the islands’ current owners, but says it will cost about $100 million to get the project started.

Sawiris suggests the refugees could turn the island into their own country and suggested naming the new nation after a young Syrian boy named Aylan, who drowned in the Mediterranean this year.

The plane is to build a new society, either a city or country state where Syrian refugees would be provided food, shelter and work.

The optimistic Egyptian Billionaire sees the act of goodness as an investment. Eventually he hopes to pay refugees to build their own homes and infrastructure to make the island a thriving city that will support itself.

Sawiris has maintained the possibility that the refugees might create their very own country instead of simply returning home when their countries stabilized.

And we all should stand with him because these people cannot simply . . .

Go Home. .