“Syrian Jasmine” to empower women refugees

In its issue of February 12, Al Mustaqbal newspaper brought into focus an initiative by ‘Syrian Jasmine’ https://www.facebook.com/SyrianJasmine/, launched back in 2014 in the Jordanian capital, Amman, by Lara Shaheen. According to Shaheen, the project aims empowering displaced Syrian women through training them on how to craft and sell handmade merchandise instead of simply waiting for a short-lived and inadequate financial aid. The project started with 5 Syrian women refugees, and a capital barely exceeding USD 2000 on a 40 square meter office area with basic equipment, Shaheen told Al Mustaqbal reporter. Some 250 women joined the workshop in the first year, she said. The project is divided into two areas, she explained. The first, which is manufactured at the factory premises, includes the making of soaps, embroidery and sewing, while the second covers handmade crochet and woolen items designed by women from their own homes, Shaheen expounded. The beneficiaries who work at the factory receive a steady monthly pay, unlike those who work by piece where the institution usually deducts a certain share of their profits. As per the marketing concept, Shaheen noted that, given the limitations of getting a trading license for a Syrian woman in Jordan, she uses social media, particularly the Jasmine page on facebook. She mentioned that she relies much on the non-for-profit organizations who tend to buy Jasmine goods and sell them in their home countries, namely, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. The beneficiaries, she said, are women who have been brought together by war and exile, coming mainly from Aleppo, Homs, Damascus and Dar3a. (Al Mustaqbal, February 12, 2017)

 

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