Fatheyah Diab and her children, a typical displaced Syrian family struggling for survival

The Daily Star published a report about Fatheyah Hussein Diab, a woman displaced from Syria earlier this year along with her 3 children and her handicapped husband.  The family settled in a modest house in the southeast village of Wazzani. The report noted that due to her asthma, Diab was not able to join the other displaced women and take part in harvesting and agriculture work.  Her two eldest children, a 15-year-old boy and his younger sister, work in the fields and earn LBP 8,000 and LBP 6,000 respectively each day. Diab decided to learn how to sew and joined a course offered by a Lebanese association. After learning the basics of the trade, she bought a sewing machine with some money she borrowed and started working straight away to pay off the debt.  Diab did not want to “embarrass her husband or humiliate him in any way”. Diab works 10 hours per day and produces around three dresses daily.  She sells her dresses to women farmers at circa LBP 5,000 a piece and hence earns between $5 and $10 a day.  The report concluded in highlighting Diab's resilience in the face of adversity as well as her hopes to expand her business.
 
Source: The Daily Star, 3 November 2014