Description
Handmade in Ramallah by the Melkite Palestinian Embroidery Workshop. The workshop began in 1988 as a response to the desperate need of families at the outbreak of the first Intifada. It soon was serving 400 women, providing materials and designs to women in surrounding villages. Women suddenly became breadwinners, as men were imprisoned, disabled, deported. Lack of sales has reduced the number of workers to 250 very part-time. Frequently Hadeel has been the only shop outside Israel/Palestine ordering from them; women occasionally have been sent home with no work. They say there are “continuing hard economic conditions and travel restrictions. The wall affects areas where some workers live; we have very limited access to Jerusalem where there are foreign tourists”