Women of Bint Jbeil contribute to marketing the products of farmers

15 women gather in a small grocery shop in Bint Jbeil determined to fight poverty and help local farmers with minimum possible cost. They were trained in agro-processing during the past year and have set-up an agro processing women cooperative aiming at encouraging women at home to prepare various homemade products as well as market these locally. The cooperative is now witnessing a clear development in its work as women are producing various type of homemade food such as dried thyme, sumac, burgul, dried herbs, herbal essences and jam. 

The president of the cooperative, Salwa Bazzi, said that the cooperative aims at achieving two essential objectives namely, the marketing the products of local farmers and the strengthening of the role of women in economic development, and noted that the raw material needed for production are bought from local farmers who have difficulty in marketing their harvest and production. 

The French UNIFIL contingent contributed to the project by supporting the training of many of the women and facilitated the travel of a few of them to France to take part in specialized training there. In addition, a joint center located in Aitaroon was constructed to house various cooperatives operating in Bint Jbeil with the support of UNIFIL, while an Italian NGO made a financial donation to cover the cost of a number of  small agricultural projects, namely related to the planting and marketing of thyme. ( Al- Akhbar 1 Nov 2013)