Meaningful Employment for Women 

Elizabeth Braley *

1 July 2008

Sitting around a table in the soap room at Sindyanna of Galilee, four women chat away in Arabic, laughing and singing while they package and inventory fair trade olive oil soap. However, the women who work at Sindyanna view employment earnestly. After talking to them about how they came to work at Sindyanna and how they experience being one of the slight minority of Arab women in Israel who has an opportunity to work, it became clear that for these women working means much more than the paycheck.

Tojan Sharare, 36, and Hana Rashid, 35, both high school graduates and mothers of three, have each been at Sindyanna for three years. They came to work here after hearing about it through classes in Hebrew and computer science at WAC-Ma'an. Talking about why she started at Sindyanna, Tojan simply said, "I want to work. I have a big family and need the money." Hana, on the other hand, says she went to work looking for some freedom from her home life. "I felt like a servant to my children in my home," she said. She believes that working helps women "see themselves first, before their family, and take on a more important role in the home."

Tojan Sharare packing za'atar in Sindyanna warehouse

Both women find it difficult filling the shoes of a mother, wife and worker all at the same time, but they can easily see how working has improved their lives. Since she started working, Tojan said, "I have consideration in my home. My children miss me but now they appreciate me more." As for her husband, Tojan said her husband had no qualms about her entering the workforce to "improve the family's financial situation." Alternatively, Hana said that her husband was first resistant to the idea of her working and told her that "he didn't want me to complain about being tired at home." Now that he sees the benefits of Hana working, she said, "he encourages me to go on working and to improve myself and my family."

The two younger employees, Doreen Dahdel, 19, and Mariam Mokatren, 20, have each been working at Sindyanna for about a year. Both women say it was easier to convince their parents to allow them to work at Sindyanna than at a job elsewhere because of its proximity to home and women-only staff. While Doreen's parents are pleased that she has a job, she said that "they would never let me work in a mall or anywhere where I would work at night." Mariam's parents encouraged her to work but were also discerning about the location. Both Mariam and her parents see many benefits in working at an organization that employs only women. "Without men at work," she said, "I am free, comfortable and safe."

Both Doreen and Mariam began working to have money to study later on. Doreen said that she originally went looking for work because she wanted "be a responsible girl and save some money for studying." She will start a degree in environmental science at Haifa University this fall. Mariam said that when she first started looking for a job, "it was quite easy to find a bad job, but much harder to find a good job." Though she enjoys working at Sindyanna of Galilee, Mariam said, "it is not part of my future plans," which include beginning cosmetology school at the end of this summer.

It is clear that all four women see working as an empowering aspect of women's lives that they will carry on with and they hope that other women will do the same. Tojan and Hana said that now that they have started working, they will continue to do so for as long as they can. They would encourage their daughters and other young women to seek the same path, and hope, as Tojan said, that they will have "the opportunity to go to university and have more chances in life." Doreen is fortunate to have the opportunity to go to university and plans on working until long after she is done with school and married. She believes that working "makes women more responsible and brings an important balance to the relationship between a woman and a man." Mariam also sees work as an integral part of a woman's life because it "gives women confidence and strength." When asked about the significance of being working, Arab women, the four talked among themselves and then Doreen responded, "we think that Sindyanna proves to people here and in the rest of the world that Arab women can work and contribute to their families." In addition to the meaningful work Sindyanna carries out, these four women reveal how the organization provides meaningful employment for women who are looking to make a change in their own lives and their society.

* The writer is an American student who volunteered in Sindyanna of Galilee during June 2008