Rural Aleppo – Ahmad Atta Akoush lives with two of his sons, each of whom has an amputated leg, after the death of tow other sons in the Syrian regime’s bombardment of the city of Atarib, rural Aleppo. In this episode of shelling, he lost all that he once owned.
Akoush has lately contacted the WATAN Foundation, as he heard of a project offering to fund small and medium projects, trying to benefit from its privileges to buy a cow, with which he plans to start his life anew.
The project, launched by WATAN Foundation in the city of Atarib in western rural Aleppo, aims to support small and medium existing projects with fixed assets to develop them.
Ziyad al-Siba’ai, the Media Director of the Foundation, said that the project’s main objective is helping these companies in meeting the society’s needs and increasing the income of these projects’ owners.
The project, according to al-Siba’ai, targets livestock farming, smithery, aluminum carpentry, cellphones, computers and electronic systems maintenance projects, in addition to Android programming and photography.
In terms of mechanism, the funding is offered in the form of purchasing materials and fixed assets for the owners of these projects with a cost of no more than $2000 per project, and the beneficiaries are selected based on studying the needs of the target area.
To guarantee accuracy in the selection of the project’s beneficiaries, coordination is sought with a community committee, consisting of nine of the community’s dignitaries, as to help in naming the needs, al-Siba’ai said, explaining that so far the number of the project’s beneficiaries has amounted to 82 persons, 43 of whom are women.
Commenting on the importance of this type of projects, al-Siba’ai said that they are considered the first phase of the early recovery of infrastructure, especially since they support the market as a whole, not to mention providing the area’s population with food and service-related necessities.
Ahmad Akoush has not yet received any sum of money though he was accepted by the Foundation as a beneficiary. However, he attributed the delay to the fact that the project is still being reviewed.
For her part, Shahid Obiad, a university student, told Enab Baladi that she tried to work in the field of photography time and time again, but the lack of equipment has always posed a challenge to her efforts, despite all the training she underwent. For this reason, she applied for the grant, believing that the proposed sum is enough for a starter.
Shahid pointed out that the first difference that she will achieve is her ability at continued training, in a more professional manner, which, in turn, will provide her with the power to find a job opportunity in the future in the field she has been seeking for more than two years.
She stressed that these projects will affect the far future, not only the foreseeable one.