‘The only place I am truly happy is under my olive trees with my family’

  Othman has been partnering with Al Ard for 15 years selling top quality olive oil and being supported by the company.  Othman is very positive about the future and his partnership with Al Ard means that not only has he been able to send his children to university, but he is also buying land to expand his farm. 

“It made me very more respected, loveable, social, a role model, and a super mom”, Huda Shadeed who’s working day and night, she told us the women in Dura now look up to her, they want to do something like her, have jobs, get an income, be productive, out forward and fighters just like her!

Um Muhammad is happy, that’s how she described how she feels about her life and contribution to her family income and to the Palestinian economy even if it’s small, but she thinks that if all women can make something out of their skills, the economy will be changed on their hands.

“Everyone was proud of me…and I was proud of myself!”

The story began 56 years ago, when a young man was watching his older cousins graveling olives; he felt the desire to work with olives, to pick them with lots of care, to separate the olives according to their size, and gravel them in a special technique to get the best possible result.

Jamil Badran (Abu Firas) is 70-years-old now. He started his own business, he lived with the olive trees and they grew old together. He met his wife. They managed to raise a family and educate their children with the love of olives.

“After my husband was against my job, now he becomes my first supporter, he encourages me and even becomes a part of it because his work as a carpenter, therefore he made us wooden soap templates and if we need to buy materials or even deliver orders to other cities, he is the one who does it.

This small project but big by its details and meaning has created hope for Nabila and her friends to have an unlimited ambition: "We started with 13 women and today we are 24 and there is still a chance to receive more and to enlarge the project more and more!