Feature: Gaza women toil for living out of hardship

With soft hands, 25-year-old woman Ghadir Tayeh from Gaza stands with full confidence in front of an electric saw and cuts big pieces of wood into small ones at a women's work center.

In spite of the risk Tayeh might face from the conservative Islamic Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, the young woman and her colleagues insist to work to overcome economic hardships. Carpentry has been always a job monopolized by men in the impoverished enclave.

Tayeh looked happy as she showed what they had already accomplished by their own. The products are wood-made small cubes that will be further processed into children's toys.

"Our products show that carpentry, a tough job and full of risks, should not fully belong to men forever," said Tayeh, who is being trained together with her female colleagues at Zina Center for Women's Work in the northern Gaza Strip.

Funded by an Italian organization, the center's main goal is to teach women from northern Gaza villages the basics of working skills, from carpentry to cloth-making. Carpentry has become a source of income for Teyah and 12 other women, who spend the day with the noise of machines.

"Within the past six months of training, I managed to get the basics of this job, so I can work on all the carpentry machines due to the intensive training I received at the center," said Tayeh, adding "I'm really happy doing this job that helped me earn a reasonable income for me and my family."

With two children and an unemployed husband, Tayeh said "by doing such a kind of harsh and tough job, I wanted to proof that the Palestinian woman is capable of showing herself as independent and powerful in all fields."

Israel has been imposing a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip since the summer of 2007 right after Hamas violently took over the coastal enclave following weeks of infighting with President Mahmoud Abbas' security forces.

Since then, poverty and unemployment rate in Gaza has been growing. According to the figures provided by the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, its unemployment rate has reached 44 percent.

Gaza-based rights groups warned that thousands of families have become severely poor since they only depended on foreign aid to survive. In order to make ends meet, some women have no choices but to challenge the tradition to find a job.

At Zina center, other women decided to learn clothe-making. Asmaa Ali, 23, graduated from a college of education in Gaza. Unable to find a job, she decided to join the center to help her family.

Nahed Kuhail, director of the center told Xinhua there are 23 young women who received training on different skills. Kuhail explained that the project is non-profit, only aiming at creating stable job opportunities for women to improve their living situation and help feed their families.

"The plan of our center is to develop and market its products," said Kuhail , adding that most of its products are children toys and clothes. Endit