IN STEREO

We started working with women because in our society, there is no equity between men and women. So [we’re] raising awareness of women’s rights [and] helping women to get their rights. Most essential and important [is] economic empowerment. Why is that? Because we used to have, in our culture, that the man is the breadwinner. Women didn’t work outside their houses. To be honest, that still exists, which means women have to think about what kind of work they can do inside their houses that will help increase their income. When you increase the income – the financial independence – domestic violence will be reduced. So basically, we connect that with part of the heritage and culture, which is embroidery. Why embroidery? Because it represents the identity of the village or the place that they come from. So part of that is protecting one of the traditional careers, you can say, by equipping women with skills that are part of the culture and identity. It’s not just the embroidery. Embroidery and agriculture, those are the two main jobs that the women in the villages or the marginalised areas are working in. We say that as Palestinians, we are rooted in this land, like the olive trees. So other products that come from the olive tree, like soap or special oil for treatments – they also work in that field. There are always challenges and there are always successful stories. The women we work with in the villages, their mobility is really limited. They have strangulation of movement, due to cultural aspects from the husband, and [availability of] transportation. We have a shop – we call it Retail Therapy – and most of the products there come from women’s work. We try to sell to internationals, and the benefit goes directly to those women. – Lucy