Rural Damascus-SANA
With the continued return of the people to their homes in the town of Hajira in the Damascus countryside, the hope of returning their locally known products to the markets pushes the owners of carpentry workshops in the town to work within the available possibilities and resort to repairing and renewing old pieces of furniture.
From his workshop, which he reopened two and a half years ago, after rehabilitating it and securing a replacement for his tools, “Abdul Rahman Zarzour” told SANA’s delegate that most of the craftsmen’s work at the present time is limited to repairing old furniture and doors with simple tools to enable people to settle in their homes.
While he collects some wooden pieces to manufacture a bed in cooperation with one of the workers, “Zarzour” shows that with the help of the local council he rehabilitated his workshop, but the work movement has been somewhat slow in the recent period due to the lack of electricity and diesel to operate the generators, stressing that hope pushes him daily to continue work and effort to restore his workshop to its former glory.
While the craftsman “Adnan Hafez” could not hide his sadness when he talked about the situation reached by the owners of the carpentry workshops in the town, who were distinguished before the war with production that reached all parts of Syria, indicating that the challenges related to electricity, the availability of fuel and the lack of purchasing power of the people negatively affected the movement of production and sales .
The craftsman “Mohammed Al-Moallem” who returned to the town in 2019 confirmed that despite the difficulties facing the owners of the workshops at the present time, their motivation to stay and continue to work is great in order to restore the status of their craft.
The town of Hujaira currently includes about 450 carpentry and blacksmithing workshops out of 600, according to the head of the local council, “Nasser Abdel Nabi,” who explained that the workshops were able to start again with the support of the local community and the council, and they were exempted from some fees during the first years.
Abdul Nabi indicated that the council is trying to help the workshop owners avoid work difficulties by providing industrial diesel to cover part of their needs and prevent them from stopping.
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