Starting Again: Lina Rebuilds Her Sewing Business in Gaza

Before the war, Lina Omar Bashir Al-Hartani had built Pattern World for Fashion into a sewing and fashion training business, training around 300 students in 2023 and employing a team across its training and production work. Then the centre was completely destroyed, along with its machines, computers, materials and equipment. Lina started again from a small rented workshop. Today, with just five machines, she is sewing clothes and products for customers while running limited training for women who want to turn sewing into a source of income. With new fabrics scarce and prices around three times higher than before, she is also increasingly repairing and recycling existing clothes and fabric. Her return to work came amid profound personal loss. Her husband, Ramzi Al-Shawa, who had helped her establish the new workshop and encouraged her to continue, was killed in April 2026. Lina became the sole provider for her family while pregnant with their second daughter. In the final weeks of her pregnancy, she continued attending Gaza Stars training sessions as she worked on a plan to rebuild her business. Now, Lina wants to expand the workshop, restore its training capacity and create new opportunities for women to learn skills they can use to earn an income from home. Gaza Stars is part of GlocalShift’s Learning to Earning programme, delivered in strategic partnership with the Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair Refugee Education Fund.