Sanandaj- For several years, women in Sanandaj have made significant progress by starting their home businesses, and fortunately, many of them have been able to bring other women in this market, it seems that many women have come to the conclusion that it is time to stop working for others and that they have to start working to save themselves from modern slavery.

Sarveh Khodamoradi is one of these women entrepreneurs who have managed to be one of the 70 or 80 women in handicraft industry like weaving, sewing Kurdish hats, scarves, Kurdish clothes, etc.

She learned how to sew Kurdish traditional hats by opening the seams of one

Speaking to NuJINHA, she said, “My name is Sarveh Khodamoradi and I am 31 years old. All these things (pointing at her products) are all handmade. I work with seventy to eighty weavers, each of whom does a specific part of the work.”

Sarveh has been doing this work for a year and she says she has been interested in it since she was a child. After getting the idea of making handicrafts from a shopkeeper, she bought a Kurdish traditional hat and opened the seam of it. Then, she resewed it to learn how to make it. She started working step by step and developed her business in time.

Weavers prefer to work at home because of their limitations

Talking about the challenges faced by women, she said, “I’d like to open a workshop for women to work in, but due to the restrictions faced by them, they prefer to work at home and I give the necessary equipment to them. Some of the women are tailors, some make hats and scarves, etc. I couldn’t have succeeded without their support.

Lack of help and support and difficult conditions for loans

Pointing to the challenges faced by her, she said that the lack of sufficient funds and support are some of them. “I supply most handmade products in the market. I mostly sell the products to wholesalers. In fact, we have lost customers many times due to the lack of necessary equipment for the weavers and I have not received support from anyone. Because of difficult conditions of getting loans, I have not been able to use a loan. The only person who has supported me is my husband,” she told us.

Many women weavers are self-supporting

“My dream is to expand my business so much that many women will be able to work with me. Many women are self-supporting and meet expenses on their own,” Sarveh said while talking about her future goals.

Women can work in this field at home by practicing

Sarveh suggests women who are not able to work outside but work at home, to learn how to make homemade products, “It’s not difficult and they can learn by practicing like me.”

One of the weavers who work for her told NuJINHA that she weaves Kurdish traditional hats and she is happy to be able to work at home.