{"id":89639,"date":"2019-11-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-23T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/actionpal.ahmadalkhuleyf.net\/post\/9391\/"},"modified":"2019-11-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-23T21:00:00","slug":"9391","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/post\/9391","title":{"rendered":"Displaced Palestinian Women Turn to Handicrafts to Provide for Their Families"},"content":{"rendered":"
A number of Palestinian refugees who were displaced from Syria to Lebanon have got into\u00c2\u00a0embroidery to earn a living to feed their children.<\/div>\n
A so-called Amna who closed her beauty salon in Syria\u00c2\u00a0when the war started decided to enroll in an embroidery training, after she was eventually\u00c2\u00a0relocated to the Shatila refugee camp in southern Beirut in 2013.<\/div>\n
\u00c2\u00a0\u201cWe are like a family here,\u201dAmna told Al-Monitor, as she introduced a small group of her colleagues at\u00c2\u00a0the\u00c2\u00a0Shatila Studio\u00c2\u00a0workshop.<\/div>\n
The studio was established with funding\u00c2\u00a0by\u00c2\u00a0Basmeh & Zeitooneh, which has\u00c2\u00a0trained over a thousand women\u00c2\u00a0between 2013 and 2018. The scarves, bags and cushion covers the women made\u00c2\u00a0were sold and the trainees received a small sum per piece sold. At the end of 2018, however,\u00c2\u00a0the project ran out of funding and the studio was about to close.<\/div>\n
According to Al-Monitor, four former trainees decided to take over the studio. Niveen, Boushra, Fatimah\u00c2\u00a0and Samar,\u00c2\u00a0who were already working as artisans and supervisors at the studio,\u00c2\u00a0decided to turn it into a business.<\/div>\n
\u201cIt was a huge step,\u201d\u009d\u00c2\u00a0Niveen Sokari, co-director and the chief financial officer of the studio, told Al-Monitor. \u201cEverything changed. We had to be more organized and always keep an eye on the figures.\u201d\u009d<\/div>\n
Sokari, a\u00c2\u00a0Palestinian born in\u00c2\u00a0Yarmouk refugee camp\u00c2\u00a0in Syria,\u00c2\u00a0spoke to Al-Monitor in her small office, whose\u00c2\u00a0walls are covered by hand-written spreadsheets illustrating the revenues,\u00c2\u00a0monthly profits and accumulated earnings.<\/div>\n
She told Al-Monitor that the studio faces\u00c2\u00a0many ups and downs, which should not come as a surprise for a startup, but\u00c2\u00a0the accumulated earnings are slowly increasing.<\/div>\n
\u201cSince we turned into a business, one of the things I am most proud of is how the quality of our products improved,\u201dshe said, explaining that they are able to \u201coffer something unique\u201dto the international markets.<\/div>\n
Most of the products from the collection of Shatila Studio are sold online, but\u00c2\u00a0they are planning to open a small showroom at the studio, which is\u00c2\u00a0located in the camp.<\/div>\n
The studio offers a stable income to 74 women,\u00c2\u00a0but more women \u201d\u201d\u00c2\u00a0up to a hundred\u00c2\u00a0\u201d\u201d\u00c2\u00a0get involved\u00c2\u00a0when there is a lot of work. The artisans are paid by the piece, regardless if it is sold or not.<\/div>\n
Shatila Studio’s identity is deeply connected with war,\u00c2\u00a0forced migration\u00c2\u00a0and refugee camps. Sokari grew up in Yarmouk, in Syria. But when she arrived in Shatila she was just shocked.<\/div>\n
\u201cI had no idea a refugee camp could look this bad,\u201dshe said. \u201cBefore coming to Lebanon\u00c2\u00a0\u201d\u201d\u00c2\u00a0even though I am a Syrian Palestinian\u00c2\u00a0\u201d\u201d\u00c2\u00a0I did not consider myself a refugee. Here I was forced to fit into this identity.\u201d\u009d<\/div>\n
\u201cIt is war that brought us together,\u201dthe Shatila Studio website states. Its logo features\u00c2\u00a0birds resting on power lines,\u00c2\u00a0one of the most common sights in the camp.<\/div>\n
\u201cOur embroideries tell our own stories,\u201dSokari added. \u201cShatila is our identity, it is where we are from. But with our skills, we can get our voice out into the world.\u201d\u009d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A number of Palestinian refugees who were displaced from Syria to Lebanon have got into\u00c2\u00a0embroidery to earn a living to feed their children. A so-called Amna who closed her beauty salon in Syria\u00c2\u00a0when the war started decided to enroll in an embroidery training, after she was eventually\u00c2\u00a0relocated to the Shatila refugee camp in southern Beirut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-89639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actionpal.tech\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}