Palestinians in the Gaza Strip especially women strive at all costs to preserve their identity and history while making ends meet for their families as poverty levels continue to rise in the coastal enclave under the 15-year Israeli siege which tightens daily.
More than 100 Palestinian women entrepreneurs participated in a Palestinian Folklore Bazaar in Gaza City. The exhibition titled “Our Women’s Products Bazaar” was organized by The Gaza Women’s Affairs Center and includes many handicrafts food products interesting goods souvenirs and henna art design for hands.
Amal Siam director of the Women’s Affairs Center in Gaza says that the center used to implement many exhibitions annually displaying women’s products from various facets such as embroidery accessories cosmetics food industries handicrafts and woodwork.
Siam explains that the bazaar’s goal is to market women’s products in various markets and to shed light on the steadfastness of women entrepreneurs. “Such a bazaar helps them defy the Israeli siege poverty and unemployment as well as preserving their heritage alive among the young generation’s memory.”
The bazaar highlights the achievements of Palestinian women entrepreneurs life and work in a Gaza Strip that is reeling under the conditions of the Israeli blockade which badly affects livelihood in the coastal strip. Siam says that the outrages of Israeli hegemony and robbery of Palestinian heritage deeply impacted the women entrepreneurs.
UN reports depict Gaza Strip as an uninhabitable place with 90% of households lacking access to clean water and 68% of families experiencing food insecurity dependent upon international aid. Siam stated that under current conditions women are the demographic segment who experience the most hardships so such projects help them promote their work and endeavor for more sustainable livelihoods.
The sustained blockade and repeated Israeli offensives have led to a dire and catastrophic deterioration of the economic situation in the territory and correspondingly it has resulted in skyrocketing poverty and unemployment rates reaching unprecedented levels of 64% and 45% respectively according to the data of the World Bank and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). The highest rate of demographic unemployment is amongst young graduates estimated at 71.1% while 34% of Gaza population lives under the poverty line.
“I started it as a hopeful opportunity to make a livelihood for my family as we lost our livelihood under the Israeli siege and aggressions against Gaza” says Ghada AlDabbah one of the entrepreneurs presenting at the Bazaar. “Then after I saw the cunning attempts by the occupation and their robbery of our embroidery and heritage I felt it’s a duty to keep spreading the truth and to keep raising the awareness among the young generations and the people across the world” she continued. “This embroidery stuff must be deep rooted in one’s own history and traditions as it is a cornerstone of our culture.”
“After my husband had an accident that hindered him from working I started to think of the best thing I can do to help my family” Sabreen AlSilawi 41 years old told me about starting her project cooking traditional dishes for clients. “It wasn’t easy for me as it requires time and budget but I started it online and the requests from people grew so I got encouraged more.” Sabreen observed that the Palestinian traditional cuisine is popular amongst attendees at the bazaar and she tells me “Such a bazaar helps me expand marketing for my project.” She continues “I feel sad when I see that Israel promotes some of our cuisine as a part of their fake history but this only gives me more motivation to disprove those lies.”
The Palestinian people’s cultural awakening to safeguarding their heritage arose in the 1970s encompassing monuments archaeological sites historical buildings and homes remains of ethnographic personal belongings traditional dishes art objects artifacts and many more. There is interest in salvaging promoting and collecting different sorts of “heritage” objects particularly the embroidered traditional dress called thobe. Organized initially by women’s charitable societies and other national establishments recently the effort has spread throughout most governmental and non-governmental institutions schools universities throughout Palestine which take responsibilities for safeguarding heritage and struggling for a decent quality of life under the severities of the occupation and blockade.
– Wafa Aludaini is a Gaza-based journalist and activist. She contributed this article to the Palestinian Information Center.
