MEET MAHA

Maha practicing her newly acquired sewing skills. 

I am Maha and I am from Raqaa in Syria. Because of the war, my husband fled first to Lebanon, to prepare for our arrival. I later joined him with our toddler and new-born. It was eight years ago and I was 24 years-old. The roads were blocked so I and many others had to flee walking for eight hours. It was a very hard journey and explosions were happening around us. I had no connection with my husband, and it took us five days to reach Lebanon. After two days, my in-laws followed us, and we all lived together in a very small place in Beirut. We were three families living in that house, the men in one room, and the women in another, and that caused many problems and misunderstandings. After that we separated and lived in different houses.

Our situation was much better before the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the lockdowns and the economic situation, my husband lost his job and the owner of our house threw our stuff outside because we couldn’t pay rent for four months. After the pandemic, the situation started getting better, but nowadays it’s up and down. We now have four children, two girls (ages 11 and 5) and two boys (ages 8 and 4).

My husband is considered disabled; he has a cleft palate from birth. When he works in anything causing dust, he gets tired because he has asthma. The aerosol medicine that he uses is often unavailable in pharmacies as they hide them to raise the prices. We are three in the family suffering from asthma and needing the medicine. Each box costs $10 and my husband alone needs one every week. We just can’t afford it.

My youngest girl has thyroid problems and is growing slowly. The medicine is also very expensive, if available at all. Life has been hard here but we can’t go back to Syria because our house has been demolished and our relatives are all abroad, whether in Lebanon or in Turkey.

I had a dream of learning sewing for so long, but I couldn’t afford a course. In the church that I attend, a sister who knew about this training advised me to register. Once we knew that it was for free, that transportation was provided, and that there was even daycare for our younger children, even my husband encouraged me to enroll!

The training is quite intensive. We come to the center six hours a day, three times a week, for four weeks. At the beginning, I felt it was going to be so hard for me to learn, because I knew nothing about sewing. My husband was sneering at me. Gradually, I found myself productive and coping well. It is all thanks to the skills and patience of the trainer, who treats us like her sisters and is always available, even outside training hours.

The first thing I sewed were pajamas for my husband. He was shocked and very proud! I also sewed clothes for our children and they loved it. I showed my work to my family in Syria and they were likewise very proud and enthusiastic.

We will graduate this week and receive a sewing machine to enable us to work from home and start our own sewing activity. Now, I can not only fix our family’s clothes, but sew them from scratch myself. It will help us save a lot of money, as clothes have become so expensive! I want to teach my girls sewing, together with their studies, so that they can have business skills in case their degrees aren’t enough to get them a job. My older daughter is already helping me with my sewing homework and the machine will help me teach her more sewing.

What I am the most excited about is that my husband’s friend has a business and offered me a part-time job right after I graduate from the training. It will be perfect timing because my older daughter will have finished the school year and will be able to take care of her siblings during the summer while I work and get some experience.

My biggest joy is that I will now be able to help my husband provide for our family and pay for the house rent and expenses. It was my motivation all along and I am hopeful it will help us make our children’s wishes come true.

My priority now is my children and their education. I didn’t finish my education and I don’t want the same for them. My older children go to a public school. My son is very good in English but struggles in Arabic. I spent all day yesterday helping with their studies for their exams.

After feeling helpless for so long, I now feel productive, responsible, and confident.