Feature: Online food ordering app helps reduce unemployment in impoverished Gaza

Source: Xinhua| 2019-11-04 00:10:20|Editor: Li Xia
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MIDEAST-GAZA-ONLINE FOOD ORDERING APP

A Palestinian man works at a local restaurant in Gaza City, Oct. 27, 2019. A group of programmers from the Palestinian Gaza Strip have developed an online application that allows customers to keep in contact with restaurants and food-producing families. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

GAZA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A group of programmers from the Palestinian Gaza Strip have developed an online application that allows customers to keep in contact with restaurants and food-producing families.

The application is meant to create self-employment opportunities that will help reduce the high unemployment rates in Gaza Strip, which has been placed under a tight Israeli blockade since mid-2007.

Abdullah Jarghoun, an engineer from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, created the Android online food ordering platform, which he named Hikaya, enabling customers to be connected with food-producing families and restaurants.

Jarghoun, with a master's degree in computing and information systems, tries to contribute to overcoming the widespread unemployment among the majority of Gazans through his application.

He said he aspires to invest in technological development and spread it largely among the people in Gaza.

"The application has provided key employment opportunities for about 18 young people, including programmers, computer engineers, accountants, photographers, and public relations officers," Jarghoun told Xinhua. "This has also helped some family market their goods that they could not sell."

While following several orders, Jarghoun said the process of connecting customers to families and restaurants takes a few minutes.

"Once we receive an order on the application, we spot the location of the customer and the restaurant or family. Then we confirm the order and send it to the customer directly," he explained.

The application, which is the first of its kind in the Palestinian territories, was launched about a month and a half ago. So far, users have access to 139 restaurants and 120 families, all from Gaza.

It will contribute to increasing the income of food-producing families who were facing difficulties in marketing their products directly through the use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram and others.

"We are planning to reach out the far south and north of the Gaza Strip," Jarghoun said.

In the past decade, Israel and Hamas movement have been engaged in major wars that claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis and caused the destruction of hundreds of homes and industrial facilities in the tiny Palestinian enclave.

The blockade and the repeated military conflicts between Israel and Palestinian factions have pushed 2 million people in Gaza deeper into poverty and despair.

A report released in February by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics showed that the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip reached 52 percent in 2018, up from 44 percent in 2017.

This new application has prompted local restaurants and food-producing families to join the platform, which helped increase the number of customers.

"This application makes it easy for us to reach customers greatly ... it enables us to market our food smoothly," Ghaydaa al-Qettati, an employee with a local restaurant in Gaza City said.

She added that the benefit of using the application is mutual.

Sabrin al-Saloul, a mother of five who makes various kinds of food at home, has been benefited from the application as she can reach more customers thanks to the platform.

"Unlike restaurants, homemade food often faces marketing and delivery difficulties," al-Saloul, who is the only breadwinner for her family, told Xinhua.

She added that listing her products on the application provided her easy access to customers, adding that the use of technology has contributed significantly to the development of her business.

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