Inaash is a Lebanese registered charity dedicated to preserving Palestinian heritage through embroidery, and to providing work opportunities for women embroiderers. Currently over 350 women are engaged in embroidering its superb products, which include jackets, shawls, abayas, clutch bags and other items designed for a global customer base.

MOR talked with Inaash General Manager, Mohammed Hassan (MH) about the mission to preserve Palestinian heritage through the finest quality embroidery, while empowering women in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people. It’s a stark reality. There are half a million Palestinians living in refugee camps throughout Lebanon that do not enjoy full civil rights, with limited access to social services, public health and educational facilities. They depend largely on organizations such as the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for services. This makes them economically and socially vulnerable. The income the Inaash women generate through their embroidery helps to sustain their families.

The living conditions in the camps are very harsh with shortages of basics such as water, electricity, food and schooling for children. The incomes our women receive for their embroidery helps them support their families and their kids’ schooling.

Preserving the Art of Stitching

Prior to 1948, village women used embroidery as an expression of their identity and their environment.  Across the generations women would sit together embroidering their thobes and other items, each piece particular to the area in which they lived. Simply by looking at a woman’s embroidered dress, others could tell which village or region she came from, her socio-economic status, and in some cases, whether she was single, married or widowed.  

Girls would start learning the tradition of embroidery at a young age learning from their grandmothers and other relatives, refining their skills throughout their lives. When the Palestinians became refugees, this beautiful tradition became at risk of eradication because of displacement in the Diaspora.

Embroidery is a big part of Palestinian identity, and a form of cultural resistance, it’s important that we preserve it. We want our heritage to stay and we need to teach embroidery to the younger generation.

Palestinian Identity and Embroidery

After 1948, when over 700,000 Palestinians became refugees, both the quality and quantity of embroidery emerging from the camps were inferior since people couldn’t afford the means to continue embroidering.  This is where NGOs like Inaash stepped in both in terms of providing materials and generating an income.

With time, embroidery emerged a symbol of identity, revolution, and resistance in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Palestinian Woman in an embroidered thobe became the image of the nation in paintings and poster art, depicting power and resilience.

During the first Intifada, women embroidered Palestinian flags, doves and rifles on their thobes as acts of resistance. The motifs were no longer regional and were adapted to represent a new identity for Palestinians.

Reviving and Empowering

Inaash was founded in 1969, by Huguette Caland, daughter of Lebanon’s first president Bechara El-Khoury to provide employment for women with no other means of supporting their family.

Since then Inaash (meaning ‘revival’ in English) has done a fantastic job safeguarding this long-standing Palestinian tradition. The organization has worked with thousands of women in the last 50 years producing embroidered products retailed to customers worldwide.

As well as opportunities to earn an income for their families our women take great pride in preserving this important tradition. When they are embroidering, they feel the strength of their Palestinian roots and their connection to their homeland.

Future Plans

As well as producing its own designs, the Inaash team works with established designers like Rabih Kayrouz, May Daouk, Nada Debs, and Raya Morcos.  New collaborations, designed to catch the attention of the younger generation, include a capsule collection with Creative Space Beirut/Second Street Shirts, and pieces by Mira Hayek, as well as Ecru Online and Nafissa.

Historically embroidery was for traditional pieces, but Inaash uses embroidery on contemporary items with cutting edge designs and color combinations.  This way we hope to expand our market beyond the Middle East for a global reach. We have many clients in the region as well as collectors from Europe and North America. Our trajectory is focused upwards. Our mission is always to preserve the heritage and empower our embroiderers.

Currently Inaash sells its products through its Beirut Hamra showroom and in exhibitions in the region and abroad.  Later there are plans for an e-commerce website.

Filmmaker, screenwriter, author and journalist Alia Yunis is a versatile woman with olive oil in her heart. With her writing appearing in the Los Angeles Times, Aramco World and Sauveur among others, she has also been published in numerous anthologies, featuring both fiction and non-fiction. A PEN Emerging Voices fellow, The Night Counter (Random House), is her first novel and her most recent work is a documentary feature film called The Golden Harvest, in which she tries to understand the profound, often troubled relationship between the people of Mediterranean and their olive trees. 

Born in Chicago, to Palestinian parents Shafiq and Abla, Alia’s father immigrated to the US on a Math’s scholarship and eventually became a respected environmental engineer and her mother an adjunct sociology professor at the American University of Beirut. Growing up in the States, both parents were academically driven and encouraged Alia and her younger brother Isam to achieve their fullest potential. But they became worried when they only saw her reading and not being more gregarious.

My parents were very strict about education-like all Palestinians. There just aren’t enough degrees we can get. But I was so shy, so when I was 15-years old, my parents actually forbid me from reading anymore books unless I went to some parties and was more social.

Preserving their culture was fundamental to her parents as it was a struggle to achieve and sustain.

Expressing our heritage was intrinsic to life in the far flung Arab American community in Minnesota in the 1970s and 80s, where we lived when I was a child. It was a very small community, spread out randomly through the state, not like today, and we would gather for picnics in the summer, Thanksgiving and Christmas, eating turkey with hummus and lubya bi zeit; a kind of Sweden meets the Middle East spread, as the kids were always pushing for the more traditional Minnesota foods, so we could feel normal. This was mostly about pushing Scandinavian Christmas cookies and Jello desserts.

Our parents were pretty determined to make us speak Arabic. They joined forces with the other Arab parents, until they found the place: They drove us an hour every week to attend Arabic language school in a room that a Lutheran church gave us. Of all the mixed religions that we could have been, I’m pretty sure none of us were Lutheran.

From a young age, Alia always new she wanted to work in film but her parents wanted her to be a doctor or engineer, so she found a compromise with them and studied political science and journalism at the University of Minnesota.

I had some idea that with journalism I could save Palestine. Academically, Palestine was my driver. I wanted to help some way. I’m not sure I have ever figured how to help.

After graduating, Alia worked for the Al Jazeera news agency but found news production did not stimulate her anf was unhappy. She then decided to return to school, receiving her masters in Film at the American University in Washington, DC.

Alia then left for Hollywood, after winning a comedy award from Warner Brothers, writing a spec script for the hit TV series for Murphy Brown, also interning on Full House.

It’s a tough industry and I was so lost as everyone around me was so confident, and I was the only Arab in room.

If the Olive could recall who planted it, its oil would run as Tears.

When her father died in 2008, Alia wanted to connect to learn more about her his past and met with his family in what is now Israel for the first time.

I had never met his immediate family and it was very emotional for me. But it was not like the West Bank, I I knew before. Nothing had prepared me for the inhumane science fiction experiment of the Israeli occupation, but at the same time I was taken by the incredible physical beauty of the place.

The Golden Harvest

Remembering her dad’s love for olive oil, Alia was inspired to understand his adoration for the olive tree further.

My dad was born in Palestine and so was olive oil. He was an expert on tasting oil and people respected his decree. Playing backgammon and testing a new batch of olive oil was how I pictured my father genuinely happy.

And it wasn’t just her father:

Almost every time I talked to people with Mediterranean roots about olive oil, they would jump in with an olive oil story that was also tied to family, politics, science, history or health. Olive trees can also represent loss and frustration, as demonstrated in the scenes of Palestinian farmers who can see their trees on land that has been seized and divided, but can’t cultivate them.

During the making of her documentary The Golden Harvest, Alia travelled to five different locations; Italy, Greece, Spain, Israel and Palestine, where olive trees not only dominate the landscape, they are a symbol of identity and family, as well as industry.

Trees ground us in our roots and the nature that surrounds all of us in the Mediterranean is the olive tree. It gives us a sense of home, even if we are living away. It is special to all three religions in the region. Throughout the world, there is no other tree like the olive tree, that can produce so much, physically and emotionally.

Born in 1977 in Beirut, Tala Atrouni found her love for art at a young age. She grew up admiring her father’s skill in calligraphy, poetry and drawings, and would keep herself busy colouring with crayons every chance she got. Despite the lack of formal art training in high school, she’s flourished as a natural talent whose life experiences have driven her to rise above the challenges, and pursue her passion for art. She is now on her way to becoming one of the most treasured artists in the Middle East.

Tala’s family fled Palestine to Lebanon in 1948 and they were fortunate enough not to live in the camps. Her grandfather, a carpenter, set up a successful family business, designing high-end interior décor. But when the Lebanese civil war began, they found themselves embroiled in yet another catastrophe.

1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon

The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted conflict lasting from 1975 to 1990. In 1982, Israel invaded South Lebanon supposedly in retaliation for the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador to England. [ADD VIDEO]

Tala remembers the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

It’s difficult to talk about. Being a Palestinian during the civil war was terrifying. We heard stories of Palestinians being kidnapped and killed, including my mother’s cousin who was murdered and thrown in the garbage.

When the bombs were hammering, Tala and her family took refuge at the German Embassy. There Tala remembers keeping busy with arts and crafts.

I was young and didn’t fully understand what was happening but I remember enjoying passing time immersed in art.

When the situation subsided, they returned home to find it had been bombed and completely destroyed.

Our balcony was all over the street. When we entered the house, we were devastated to see what had happened. My father was heartbroken, there was very little we could take with us and unfortunately all my childhood photos were also destroyed.

Like many who grew up during the Lebanese civil war, the trauma is embedded in Tala’s mind.

I would never want my children to experience war. I am grateful to my parents for being so positive, despite the sadness around us. They tried their best to remain cheerful and make us laugh. My parents always told us to accept the past and not live the drama, that we should transcend from our pain and do better.

As the war continued, her parents had the opportunity to move to Sweden for a better life, but Tala’s mom insisted they stay in the Arab world, to preserve their roots. Despite all the hardship she witnessed, Tala found refuge in her paintings.

Art is my Life and my Life is Art

Tala enrolled in the school of fine arts at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. Her father was concerned about her choice and encouraged her to enrolled in advertising so that she would earn a minor degree in the field and improve her chances of finding a job. She earned her bachelor’s degree in 1998 with an award of excellence in the art of painting and sculpture.

After she met her husband, they moved to San Francisco, California. There, she worked in the high-tech industry for three years as a publishing team leader, when she decided to continue her graduate studies and pursue a future in art. She attended the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco. In August 2005, she graduated with an MFA degree in illustration.

I’ve travelled the World to find myself coming Home

Tala and her husband made the conscious decision to move back to the Middle East and settle in the Gulf for their children.

We didn’t want our children to be confused about who they are. Staying connected to the Arab world was important for us. We wanted to be in an environment where they are more accepted and are proud of who they are as Arabs

Hardship hit home again when Tala lost her mother in a tragic car accident. Her father heartbroken from the tragedy and passed away only few months later.

It was a wakeup call for me. I had to accept what had happened and painting helped me with my grief and gave me peace.

To be an Artist is to believe in Life

Tala had her first successful solo exhibition in Muscat and was honored by the French and Lebanese Ambassador who inaugurated the event. Today, Tala is based in Abu Dhabi and continues to express herself through her beautiful paintings.

I gain inspiration from different artists. I love to paint abstract but at the moment I’m turning towards a more minimalist style, perhaps because we live in such a hectic time, where we are so busy, and we need a break. In the painting you can find peace and serenity. I love how colours interact with each other, I find it totally exhilarating.

I’ve found that one of the most effective ways of expressing the values of My Olive Roots is to have real touch and feel experiences that only grassroots events, like a  market, can offer.

The first such market MOR participated in, was with Body Tree Studios  in the spirit of Palestine and it was a great success, giving us the chance to connect with people from all walks of life who were committed to a meaningful retail experience. How? By buying ethically sourced products from small-scale vendors who have healing the world – at some level – as their USP.

 

This will be Body Tree’s 5th Yoga Market and will host Nancy Zabaneh as its special Yogi guest, a Kundalini Teacher and emotional intelligence mentor. Founders of the Body Tree Studios, Nadia and Sharifa Sehweil, are the fulcrum of Yoga at-its-best here in Abu Dhabi and they are  committed to exploring ways through which grassroots events can strengthen the experience of community.

This time around, we will be hobnobbing with the studios juice bar, Nectar, which is the brainchild of Mira Naaman Iskandar, a London trained chef famous for her healthy creations.  

Also at the market, Rumi Earth, Hautletic, Mala B, Mr. Fox, Shaggy Hands, Clove Essentials, Womn Cosmetics, yApparel, and Holly Holistic.

Ideal for those who want to shop for a cause, on offer will be our favourite Palestinian-inspired products, which are either produced in Palestine or lovingly recreated by refugees or by local small-scale producers with an intrinsic theme of the Mediterranean.

Some movies exalt the inane, whilst others help us to transcend looking back in anger and forward in fear, but around in awareness.

Reel Palestine, an annual film festival screening independent and alternative Palestinian films in the UAE is definitely in the latter category. Increasingly anticipated every year by the community, this not-for-profit, volunteer-based organization was founded by Dana Sadek, Nadia Rouchdy and Noora Husseini. Today the team includes Ali Aboteen, Bahaa Khayaali, Amira Shaheen and ​Tarik Qahawish.

Curious to know more , I recently spoke to  Dana Sadek, Co-founder of Reel Palestine about their annual film festival, running on January 18th – 27th 2018 in the UAE.

Keeping it Reel

Born in 1985 in the US, Dana grew up in Dubai and has never returned to her ancestral village of Dayr al Qassi in Palestine. Like many Palestinian living in the diaspora, she struggled to connect with her roots.

Growing up in the UAE, I grappled to forge a bond with my Palestinian roots. My mother is Lebanese, and my father Palestinian, born in Lebanon and neither of them have been to Palestine. I hope to visit one day soon.

In 2014, Dana was amongst the millions of horrified spectators who watched the tragic war in Gaza unfolding on TV and felt frustrated. Her helplessness compelled her to dive in, contributing to causes that would impact people besides donating to charities she believed in. At that time Dana was working in film programming and realized what an important tool  film is. Inspired by the impact it had on her and on the community, she realized the potential to develop a similar cultural event for Palestinians.

 I thought how incredible it would be to put together a festival that unveiled art whilst supporting Palestinian self awareness and empowerment. After all, Film is an effective tool that has the ability to teach and touch people’s hearts in a unique way.

Dana wanted to create a platform that would educate Palestinians in the diaspora about their homeland and also bring awareness to the situation they face.

She connected with long-time friend Nadia Rouchdy for advice and  later Noora Husseini, together they created Reel Palestine.

We are showing real life. It was important to us to share the stories of Palestine and make a lasting impact. Film has a way of percolating deeply into everyone’s consciousness and this can foster awareness and ultimately, transformation.

Films that holler use this art form as a weapon. Sensitivity is the healing and responsiveness the result.

Their first launch was a pop-up festival in January 2015 to showcase Palestinian culture and persistence through film, bringing awareness to viewers of the beautiful, difficult, emotional and inspirational moments that occur under occupation.

Festival of Festivals

This year marks Reel Palestine’s 5th annual festival and promises to be magnificent with an exciting line up of films, as well as an enticing Palestinian artisan market. Wael Kabbani, director of “What Walaa Wants” will also attend the screening of his movie followed by a Q&A.

Dana concludes,

We hope to continue the festival every year and foster a home for it. Having support from filmmakers and distributers is vital for our platform. We are grateful to our sponsors like Nai and Camaly Clinic, that help make this festival thrive with each passing year.

This young US born Palestinian woman is a jewelry and handbag designer unveiling a unique twist to her craft. By preserving Palestinian artistry through her accessory line Canava, Lina upholds the region’s precious heritage. From earrings, necklaces, to mother of pearl clutches, all of Lina’s pieces are handmade by her.

Life in Gaza

Lina Elbayya moved around quite a bit growing up. She spent 7 years of her childhood in Gaza and shares her bitter sweet memories.

I was in in 5th grade when a helicopter bombed a governmental building near my school, Situations like this were constantly happening and we would usually hide underground in our home. I recall seeing funerals daily on my way to school, images no child should remember.

Always committed to their homeland, her parents felt it was time to leave Gaza and move to the United States. They did everything to uphold their culture.

My parents spoke to us in Arabic, we would visit Gaza and my mother cooks traditional meals. My absolute favorite dish from Gaza is Fatta, buttery rice and griddle bread with chicken and chilies, it is so delicious.

Discovering Talent

Lina realized her love for the arts in Middle School and wanted to explore it further. Her talented uncle Maisara Baroud, an abstract artist in Palestine, recognized her talent and encouraged her to enter his studio, teaching her the different perspectives of understanding art.

Whilst growing up in Gaza, she learned the traditional skill of embroidery “Tatreez”.

In Gaza I would sit with my Aunts and watch them embroider while socializing. I became curious and began to stitch with them, this is how I learnt. Tatreez is so special, I want people to appreciate the meaning of each piece.

Following Dreams

Lina’s parents were always supportive of her artistic development and encouraged her to follow her passions. She studied Interior Design at Marymount University in DC and then married her sweetheart Mohammed and moved to Toronto, Canada.

After having a child, she wanted to release her creative energy and start something of her own.

I began to embroider and make jewelry, and this led me to create Canava.

Canava in Arabic means “a piece of gridded cloth” and is used for embroidery and most commonly for cross-stitch.

I wanted a smart name that relates to my work and means a little bit more. Canava is the first thing I hold to start any Tatreez project.

 

Lina makes all her pieces on her own at home.

My ideas come suddenly to me. My imagination takes me everywhere all the time, I get inspired naturally.

 

Earrings

With each a stunning statement piece made, she combines Palestinian embroidery with modern day fashion.

Palestinian heritage inspired me in both my art and interior design. I love exploring different cultures and fusing them in my work.

 

Clutches

She incorporates past traditions with new trends.

I bought a Syrian jewelry box from a random convenience store in Brooklyn NY and thought how amazing it would look as a handbag. It reminded me of my grandmother’s backgammon set and people loved the idea.

Lina is clearly into keeping up with fast changing fashion world whilst maintaining Palestinian and Middle Eastern traditions. She is also keen on incorporating embroidery to her clutch bags.

Canava In the Future

Lina hopes to grow her fledgling brand and make it global.

The idea is for Palestine to be recognized and appreciated all over the world through the arts. It would be meaningful to have a piece of home wherever we are in our new homes.