In Azaz city, Aleppo’s northern countryside, the ‘Nabea’ Al-Hayat’ Association for childhood and development concluded its women training courses with the graduation ceremony of the fourth batch of trainees on September 21, which marked the end of its one and a half year program.
The association, which had previously rendered services to 1,000 women, proceeds with its activities after donors imposed cuts on funding, due to which the team of the Women Training Center has taken it upon itself to pursue the work on a voluntary basis, under the nascent Shams Organization.
Voluntary effort with modest resources
In Nabea’ Al-Hayat Association’s last training term, 250 trainees graduated from the departments of Nursing, Tajweed/recitation of Quran, Turkish, English and Computer.
The graduates were granted experience certificates, sealed by the organization and signed by a specialist at each department.
“[Informed of ] the cuts imposed on the funding of the Women Training Center, a lot of people appealed to us to proceed with the work,” the supervisor of the association’s training center, Kawther Karim, said.
The team, thus, decided to continue its activities and training programs voluntarily until the center can obtain support again.
The seven-person team, along with the supervisor and the hygiene officer, established a new organization and called it ‘Shams’, consisting of the departments of Turkish and English languages, literacy, knitting, computer and nursing.
To afford logistic costs of printing and stationery, the team will be training 20 women only per term.
New life and empowered independence
The significant impact the team made, which effected a difference in the lives of the graduates, became the training team’s source of determination to carry on with the vocational courses it is holding.
Ms. Diaa Othman, one of the organization’s beneficiaries, has opened her own beauty salon after she undertook a four-months hairdressing and makeup course.
And today she is capable of providing for her four orphaned children and is reclaiming ‘life,’ as she put it.
At the end of the course, the organization, Diaa told Enab Baladi, provided her with some simple equipment to start her project, and allowed her to attend two courses in knitting.
“The services were simple, but their value to us was great and precious,” she said, noting that the good treatment the trainees received has motivated them to stay committed to training and enhanced their willingness to learn more.
Having obtained the first experience certificate in nursing, Alaa Faraj, another trainee, decided to go for computer skills and English, affected by the positive changes brought into her life by the first training.
Faraj told Enab Baladi that once granted an accredited certificate in nursing, she was able to work in a clinic, seeking to get a job as a data entry clerk at the National Hospital in Azaz.
From Ghouta to Syria’s north
The ‘Nabea’ Al-Hayat’ Association for childhood and development began its activities in 2013 in Eastern Ghouta, initially preoccupied with training women and childcare, offering them psychological support.
Following the displacement of the association’s staff to Syria’s north, it continued to work in Idlib and then in Aleppo, the media official, Rafi al-Shami, told Enab Baladi.
“Their social role being of great importance while they are the most affected by war,” the association made training women its main focus.
According to the organization’s training center supervisor, Kawther Karim, the team’s goal is to empower women to become “active, self-sustaining and capable of securing their livelihood relying on their own efforts.”