Women help Women - everywere

On one of my walks through the Old City I discovered another women empowerment organization today. I had a brief conversation with the woman at the shop which sells embroided traditional palestinian clothes, similar to those Gypsy-designs that are up for purchase in the Domari Society Center.
She told me, that this Melia Initiative was founded 20 years ago and she in one of four regular employees. A voluntary Helper was there as well, a young American who wanted to support palestinian women. The Shop works with up to 500 women, buys their handicraft, sells them and offers a monthly income. And there is a Restaurant, an internet cafe and a clinic attached to the Oranisation. If a woman can't stitch, there will be workshops. If a woman prefers to cook she can work at the restaurant. The cost for medical care at the clinic depend on the womens income.
It's jut like something Amoun would like to have done.

I wondered why this initiative is so much more save and successful than Amouns Domari: Society of Gypsy in Jerusalem. Why does Amoun have to struggle for every tiny bit of support while this other organization which seems to have really similar strategies is wealthy enough to run their own hospital?
The woman at the shop said: "It's because of the community. We are a lot of women and we help each other. Palestinian women support palestinian women. We trust each other. They know that they will get the money from us and we know that they will make their stiching for us. If you have no people like you to rely on how will you get another community to support you?"

When I told her about my study and the Domari Society Center she figured that she had heard about Amoun Sleem. And she went on: "But thats not like us. We are palestinian, not gypsy."

"A population at risk"

In October 2004 the Dom Society Center and the Jerusalem Business Developement Center published a report on a survey among the Dom population of Jerusalem.
This report has been send with the proposals for funding womens business courses like sewing classes, cooking workshops and cosmetical education. Those lectures were no short-term evening classes but real educations that took up to one year and many women took part in them. It is impressive to see in the report that there was a percentage of 85% in the women and 90% in the men who wanted to learn a new profession but couldn't afford it or didn't know how.
Thanks to Amoun Sleems commitment to the community and to the center there are some women present who earn money with the skills they learned in the courses. But until today no woman and no man has founded an own business, shop, restaurant or salon because of the lack of financial opportunities.
Furtheron the report gives answers to my questions concerning the size of an household, the monthly income, the equipment in the flats and some of the formal economy strategies. Only 5% of the Dom owned a car, a TV is the most common "luxury item" and even a airconditioning system is not common among the Dom in 2004. The report devides between families with more than 6 members and those with less and points out that those expensive goods are more often to be found in lager families. This indicates that more people in one "economical team" lead to better conditions for everyone. But later it is said that in those families were adult children stay at their parents place those nearly never have jobs or a good enough education that they could bring an own income. As soon as children over 18 still live at the parents place they seem to be more of a burden than help. Nevertheless those families have access to TV, washing machines, oven and hot water most often. This indicates some intersting issues about informal economie and a selfregulating spread of money within the community. After all: The vast majority of the Dom families live from less than 3000 NIS a month wich is less than 1000 Dollars. With 5,6 children per family and the expensive rent in the Old City this is close to nothing.
So this report with its quantitative approach helps me a lot if I can rely on it - and it shows me the issues were a simple survey isn't useful anymore. I will have to get closer to the Dom to find out how they make this miracle of surviving under those conditions possible - but I wouldn't be suprised if that would be kept a secret.