Mother Aysha

International Women's Day

Meet Mother Aysha Hamid, an extraordinary 65-year old woman living in Gaza. Aysha supports a family of 26 by making traditional Palestinian embroideries and dresses, and by working the markets of Gaza, buying and selling clothes.

Aysha defied the male members of her family when, as a young woman, she first pursued a career as a tradeswoman. "They tried to stop me, but they couldn’t," she recalls. "I’m like a smoking addict. I have the cravings for it. All the patterns are stored in my head. Even though I can’t read, I copy beautiful patterns from pictures in magazines."

Aysha first became a client of UNRWA’s Microfinances and Microcredit Programme in 1994. She received a loan of 1000 shekels (today approximately US$238). Eleven years and sixteen loans later, her business keeps expanding, and her most recent loan was for USD3000. "If you take a loan, you have to pay it back," is the advice Aysha gives to other women wanting to start their own businesses.

Director Johan Eriksson’s film Mother Aysha , won the Best UN Short in ‘Stories in the Field; The First United Nations Documentary Film Festival in Cooperation with the United Nations Department of Public Information and The New School’ in 2006. To view the film visit UNRWA’s website at www.unrwa.org