Reports | 25 05 2020
Hadeel works daily on making mud stoves, defying the high price of gas in Hula, northern Homs.
The siege forced people to go back in history to the time of grandparents, in some regions in Syria, especially as they have used the simplest materials available in order to survive, where the siege means the lack of all means and the scarcity of resources.
Hadeel lives in a village in Hula, and she regained the idea of her childhood memories when her grandmother told her about the old stoves, so she got the idea and start working on it, taking advantage of the availability of clay.
"The idea of making fireplaces came to my mind when I remember the tales of my grandmother, who told us about her time, about sixty years ago, and we took the way and revive it!" says Hadeel.
Straw and Burlap .. Raw materials
Hadeel made more than the stove a day, and sells the one for up to 1000 SP, with an average of up to 40 stoves a month.
She mixes straw with mud or burlap and builds it appropriately, then let go for a second day to dry under the sun, in order to make it usable. And the wood can be run underneath it to heat up and be ready for cooking.
She explains about making the stove method: "I mix clay with straw or burlap and build it in a suitable way, so you can put whatever you want on its surface", adding: "all you need is straw, mud and burlap bags made of cotton, people of the region prefer fireplaces made of burlap, where it was used by ancestors in making ovens, and for their ability to withstand the high temperature, in this case I ask who wants an oven made of burlap to bring me burlap bags and then I chop it and make the fireplace. "
Popularization of the idea
Many families in Hula benefited from the Hadeel’s stove, particularly as she has circulated her experience, and people there are visiting her to learn how to make the stove and she helps them doing that.
She said: "500 families were benefited from these fireplaces because of the high cost of gas,and a lot of families came to my place to learn how to manufacture."
Umm Mohammed, one of the beneficiaries, said to Rozana: "I always buy fireplaces from Hadeel and use them in cooking and making tea and everything, and buy one every year because the fireplace becomes unusable because of using them dramatically, with 500 Syrian pounds for the stove, but the prices vary from 500 to 1000 pounds depending on their size and manufacturing components."
Om Mohammed relies on the stove because of the high cost of gas, with 9000 Syrian Pounds for the Gas jar if any!
For her part, Um Hassan says: "Hadeel became famous in the village, she is manufacturing fireplaces with accepted prices and god quality," adding: "In every house you can see a stove as well as gas jar, because in case we are out of gas we use the fireplace instead of it."
Housewife and breadwinner
In this way, Hadeel is being able to support her family, consists of her 6 children and husband, who is unemployed as a result of the lack of all enablers to work under the applicable siege practiced by the Syrian regime on Hula city for more than eight months.
Hadeel explains " my oldest child is twelve years old, and the youngest one is at the age of six, their shift in school is uneven because of the shelling and the current situation, and my husband helps me a lot and is proud of me."
Hadeel confirms in her speech that she is happy at her work because she was able to provide her family with everything needed, she is one of the Syrian women who had decided to break the social frameworks to cope with life.