” Zewadetna ” … a sign of hope, hoping that it may change reality for the better
Thoraya Hasan – Al Liwaa Newspaper
Mother’s Day this year is different from previous years with all its details .. as there is no longer joy in homes with his arrival .. there are many who lost their mothers .. others have lost so that they were born because 56 of the Corona pandemic .. And there are those who are no longer able to buy bread. To feed his children … in light of the fatal economic crisis and the insane rise in food prices … so how if he seeks to buy a rose on Mother’s Day … “God conceal” how much its price will be !!
However, a glimmer of hope loomed on the horizon to alleviate the financial burden on the shoulders of many women (girls and women), with the launch of ” Zewadetna ” campaign to employ and encourage Palestinian women to work in order to improve family income … in the face of the difficult economic conditions that Palestinian refugees are going through as a result of the crisis. Economic finance in Lebanon .. which increased by the outbreak of the Corona virus … and its economic and financial repercussions.
The campaign was born in August 2020, and depends on the principle of strengthening solidarity and social solidarity, by inviting Palestinian and Lebanese shareholders (businessmen and women, employees and employees) to buy hot meals and serve them to needy families in Ain El-Helweh camp and its surroundings. Costs of raw materials and payment of workers’ wages in preparing meals.
The women working on the project benefit from the training service provided by the Palestinian kitchen “Zewadetna”, which is affiliated with the women cooperative societies, with cooking skills, especially Palestinian traditional foods, sweets, pastries, jams and distilleries.
The project coordinator, Rawan Al-Sayed, told : “The goal that ”Zewadetna ” employment campaign seeks is to empower Palestinian women economically first, and to provide for poor families. Secondly, by providing them with hot meals. The employment of 5 women per month, chosen on the basis of specific criteria: the woman’s need to work (the poorest families), the availability of time to work, the willingness to undergo training courses .. which resulted in 35 women joining the campaign until the end of February, and we are also working to make Palestinian women Exploits its unlimited capabilities and capabilities for the sake of development and advancement of herself and her family.
With a smile of hope, Naima Jamila (a participant in the campaign) said: “The campaign helped us open our homes and provide for our children in light of the exorbitant high prices that we live in today in Lebanon, and in the Palestinian camps in particular. It made it easier for us to buy food, and what the daily dish needs. In addition to the psychological support that the campaign provided us, today I have become a working woman who is able to meet the needs of my children and my home.
She wished “with all my heart to continue this campaign to support us, the women who are the main breadwinners for our families,” and advised “all Palestinian women to work, in a way that benefits us financially and psychologically, and we are not a burden on anyone but a productive and strong Palestinian woman.”
The sadness in her eyes concluded: “We suffered difficult circumstances, until we reached the point that we no longer possessed what our children were purified with .. Regarding Mother’s Day, we used to wait for it in the past to meet with the family and be happy, but now everything has changed, until happiness has become forbidden to us.”