At the time, Aida was placed in a cleaning cooperative that was in its infancy, and she worked full-time in a factory with all the legal rights for an entire year. After a year she was forced to leave the factory due to disagreements between the factory and the cooperative. But she remained a member of MAAN’s Women’s Forum, and began attending weekly empowerment meetings that the organization conducts for its members. Empowerment was an integral part of MAAN’s “Women and Work” project, which aims to help unprofessional Arab women integrate into the labor market, increase the proportion of working Arab women, reduce the poverty rate in Arab society, and strengthen the status of women in the Arab society.
Before joining the group, Aida felt lonely and with no horizon ahead of her. Attending empowerment sessions with other struggling women became a milestone that changed Aida’s life from end to end. She really connected to her facilitator Hana Tawfiq, and never missed a session. After each meeting Aida felt she was going through an internal revolution, and was gradually acquiring new strengths and positive energies to overcome obstacles and change her life.
During all that time, Aida worked through MAAN for various employers. About a year ago, MAAN, encouraged Aida to participate in a professional course funded by the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, through the JOINT’s project Eshet Hail (woman of valor). She took a cookery course, which taught her to cook traditional cooking using a traditional technic, used centuries ago, of an oven buried in the ground. The dishes smoke the food, usually meat and poultry as well as vegetables. She set up such an oven in her yard and began to cook and market the food, with MAAN’s encouragement, helping her reach a wide crowed on Facebook, and WhatsApp groups. She received a lot of applauds from her empowerment group.
In the month of Ramadan, which took place in the middle of the corona plague, the demand for Aida’s special food increased greatly as a result of the shut down.
After careful scrutiny and search, Aida decided to rent a place in her village Jat and open a restaurant where she would sell her special dishes. The opening took place on December 5, and was attended by 100 visitors, who took shifts in attending the event, lasting therefore several hours according to the requirements of the Ministry of Health. There were women and men, from the extended family, from MAAN’s women’s forum, from a Eshet Hail (woman of valor), and clients, who all without exception supported the project and encouraged her to continue. Also present were the heads of the councils of Baqa al-Gharbiya and Jat, who expressed appreciation for Aida’s strong personality and entrepreneurship.
Aida sums up the project as follows: “We women by nature love life, and we have patience and the ability to develop ourselves and our personalities, but we need moral support and encouragement to reach our goals. The pandemic hurt a lot of private businesses, yet, in these difficult times for everyone I learned that you have to create your own opportunities.”
Interviewed by Wafa Tiara, director of MAAN in the Triangle’s Women and Work project.
