Meryem Kerim turns her kitchen into patisserie

In Kurdistan Region, women’s participation in the labor force is less than 11 percent. Even if women are university graduates, they have difficulties finding a job so they try to find a way to economically stand on their own legs. Meryem Kerim, who has a bachelor's degree, is one of these women.

MİHRİBAN SELAM KAKAYİ

Halabja – Meryem Kerim is a university graduate living in Halabja. But she doesn’t practice her profession, actually, she cannot. She is only one of the unemployed university graduate women in the Kurdistan Region. She has baked cakes in her house and sold them to earn a livelihood due to the increasing unemployment rate in the region. After being graduated from Halabja University, she looked for a job for months but she couldn’t find one. She has baked cakes in her house for six months.

For Meryem Kerim, baking cakes was just a hobby. She baked cakes for her family members and friends before. But after looking for a job for months, she decided to earn a livelihood by baking cakes

“I expect nothing from the government”

Meryem first created a website to sell homemade cakes, “I loaded the pictures of cakes on my website. People buy and like my homemade cakes and they leave comments.  I have received orders, particularly for birthday cakes. I expect nothing from the government now because I can earn money.”

She is happy to receive positive comments

Meryem Kerim wants to make different cakes but she cannot because the prices of cake ingredients are expensive and cannot be found easily in Halabja. “I am happy to receive positive comments on my homemade cakes,” she said.