A 35 year old Gaza woman leading her successful accessory making business

Fatma Abu Daya, a 35 year old housewife telling the story of her resilience and success in the mid of the bad economic conditions in Gaza: “I learned by myself and have become able to run my own business. My kids have become professional producers like me despite the absence of their father who has been out of the country for 4 years looking for a job. After my husband left us, the situation started to become more difficult. I had no option but to sell the house furniture and my personal belongings to cover the expenses of my children. However, I did not surrender and started to take some professional courses in making embroidery and manual arts productions. I now became able to produce my own artistic products and sell them in several markets.”

Fatma added: "When I was going to the market, I used to watch the expensive accessories which I had no enough money to buy. However, I learned how to design and make these accessories through watching educational online videos. I then started to gradually design some small pieces such as rings and nickles which have gained the admiration of everyone. I then suggested to one of my friends to use the same methodology to design accessories for a shoe which I succeeded in. When I found myself becoming more successful in this field, I decided to develop a special Facebook page for marketing my hand made accessories and products. Immediately, I received many requests from customers who wanted to buy my promoted accessories. I even have become unable to satisfy all the requests I receive due to its huge amount. Some of the requests come from customers in the West Bank asking me to deliver them large quantities of my products". 

This is just a story of one of the Palestinian women who did not surrender to the bad economic situation of Gaza. Lots of women like Fatma are now running their own businesses which cover several working fields including even harder ones. I've recently heard of some women starting to work as carpenters and their products even started penetrating the local market with high competition against the products made by many professional male carpenters. This situation, in my view point, reflect the fact that the Palestinian woman is allowed to occupy all different positions in their communities without being exposed to any objections as some people falsely claim.