Azary: Giving Palestinian businesswomen a boost on International Women’s Day

Jerusalem24 – Enabling Palestinian businesswomen and empowering them economically has been one of Palestinian society’s most important recent endeavors. And this endeavor is exactly what Palestinian organization Azary is aiming to achieve.

The company celebrated International Women’s Day by holding an event in Ramallah, in presence of the Governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh Dr. Laila Ghannam, launching an application targeting women who are traditionally unable to access the workforce.

“What makes us different is that the idea of Azary is how to create business for women, from their home, in their own time, and with no initial investment,” Azary CEO Jack Malouf tells Jerusalem24.

Azary, positioning itself as the “middle-man” between Palestinian businesswomen and suppliers, launched its application where users can select from a wide range of products at wholesale price before putting them for sale on their own “Azary Boutique” – while retaining all the profits themselves.

“So Palestinian women now have the opportunity to sell any of the products they want without having to reach out to wholesale suppliers,” Malouf explains. “They can go to that platform and sell anything they want, without us taking any percentage of their sales.”

Azary also helps with online marketing, which spares its users the time and cost of engaging in social media marketing, and offers training (including in graphic design and digital marketing) to all women who are new to the business world.

It was during his experience as a consultant for USAID women’s empowerment programs that Malouf was able to “determine the need” for such a platform in the first place.

“Especially Palestinian women have the biggest passion you can think about,” he says, “but they don’t have the tools and resources, they don’t have the support where they can execute this passion and reach their goals.”

He points out that Palestinian women bear a wide burden of responsibilities on their shoulders, mostly linked to home life in a still widely-patriarchal society. For those women who are prevented from joining the work force for a variety of reasons, there is a need for economic opportunities that they can implement while they are also responding to other expectations.

As long as Palestinian women comprise a low percentage of the workforce, with a nearly 50% gap in labor participation between men and women, there will be a need for initiatives aiming to empower them to achieve financial independence and stability.

Listen the full interview on Vibes.

https://soundcloud.com/24fmpalestine/interview-jack-malouf?si=f9f12fdad3e84a1cbed4c451cad3ce97&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing