GAZA, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Two Palestinian siblings, who can not find jobs in the Gaza Strip, make a living by hand-making art pieces out of olive and pine wood.
In a small wooden hut on the roof of their home in Gaza city, 20-year-old Nidal al-Nakhala and his 23-year-old sister, Heba, spend long hours making various shapes of woodwork to be sold through social media on Internet.
The idea began when they wanted to make a distinctive wooden frame for their father's picture, which amazed their father.
"Making a gift for my father turned into a small business after our relatives and friends were impressed by what he made out of small pieces of wood...many of them asked for the same piece as they admired it," Heba told Xinhua as she carved a small piece of olive wood.
Heba, a graduate of Social Work College from a local university in Gaza, has always been a job hunter in her field of study, but in vain.
"I was convinced that it is not easy to find a job in light of the high unemployment rates among graduates in Gaza," she said.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 61 percent of young graduates in the Gaza Strip suffer from unemployment.
Heba pointed out that the economic situation in the Gaza Strip was a motive for her and her brother to continue with their ideas and develop them into a source of livelihood.
Nidal, who is a student of computer science in a Gaza university, explained that their father, who works as a carpenter, helped them get used to wood and equipment.
Nidal and his sister, who belong to a 10-member family, enjoy their work with great precision and concentration. They both have been working in the manufacture of wooden furniture for nine months.
They peel the bark from the branches of the trees after cutting them into small circular pieces and then placing them on a wooden board in a geometric or circular shape.
They manufacture mirror frames, small chairs, corner tables, incest, garbage bins, and various art forms.
However, their work is not easy given the circumstances of the situation in the Gaza Strip caused by the ongoing Israeli blockade which was imposed in 2007.
They lack of basic services, such as power outages and scarcity of raw materials.
There is also a shortage of large machines that would help them shorten time and make their work more precise, which take them two to four days to manufacture a single wooden piece.
"We do not have a place to display the pieces we make for the purpose of selling, but participate in local exhibitions held by some institutions and associations in Gaza," Nidal said.
"We also show our items on social media networks," he added.
The price of one piece is between 30 and 200 shekels, or 10 to 60 U.S. dollars.
"We hope we will have our own store soon. We want our works to be in every Palestinian home," he said.
