Our Embroiderers
It’s in Our blood
Jamileh and Nazmieh Salim are two of six sisters who embroider for Inaash. They live in Mar Elias refugee camp.
Jamileh started embroidering when she was 13 years old. It became a lifetime commitment. “I can say that by now embroidery flows in my blood, I could never stop doing it.” Nazmieh too has clocked up almost 30 years of embroidery and between the two of them the sisters have produced some of Inaash’s most outstanding work.
“In Palestine,” Jamileh says, “the women would gather together to embroider, usually in front of their houses. They would put a basket in the middle with the balls of thread and start to work – a word here and a word there, a stitch here and a stitch there, that’s how it’s been for centuries. Now we sit outside of our houses in summer and inside in winter.”
The Salim sisters’ story can be replicated across the five Lebanese camps where almost 400 embroiderers work with Inaash.