If you want a personalized notebook in the Gaza Strip these days, 24-year-old Mohammed Hammed is your guy. The Islamic law student and self-taught graphic designer runs Dfter, the coastal enclave’s first and only hand-designed notebook business, offering pads personalized with  the print, name, or saying of your choice on the cover.

“I decided to use my design talent to start my own business rather than waiting for a job in the government, as there are no jobs or salaries,” he tells.

And like many entrepreneurs in Gaza–where a staggering 58% of young people and 40% of adults are unemployed, according to the World Bank–Hammed runs his business through Instagram and Facebook. Social media-based business is a worldwide trend, but it’s of particular import in war-ravaged Gaza. Palestinians can’t simply import or export a product from anywhere in the world, as the typical e-commerce model envisions. So instead people are creating their own internet-based domestic economies through social media, at once connected and disconnected from markets outside of Gaza.

People like Hammed can’t afford rent for a shop and can’t build their own because of Israel’s restrictions on construction materials (which can be used for building both homes and tunnels). So instead Hammed’s customers, order the notebooks online and a local delivery service brings them to their door.

Business through social media is “a natural development,” says Gaza-based Palestinian economist Omar Shaban, noting that despite having among the world’s highest unemployment rates, Palestinians in Gaza are highly educated. “Gazans are educated and connected to Israel and international markets, so they know what’s going on. Still, they are limited because of the situation, the blockade, the checkpoints, and difficulties in importing.”

Amany El Kahlout, 24, launched her own insta-business this year selling imported goods and other daily products. The Arabic-English translator first used Instagram for fun to share pictures of her coffees and meals. Soon, she was gaining followers, who were asking her for recommendations and recipes.

“People start to like the idea of shopping from the home,” El Kahlout says. “And they’ve started to trust this. Because of the siege and the electricity problems, people started to like Instagram.”

Other Gazans are experimenting with new kinds of markets as they go. Ensaf Habib, 21, a journalism student, has a very popular Instagram account, with 103,000 followers. Many followers initially came for the reports about Palestinian life and history that she and friends compile and post from places all around Gaza. But it wasn’t long until that fame also drew the attention of companies and businesses in Gaza, which started to request advertisements for their products and services.

It’s everyday resilience and creative victories like these that make life a little more manageable for besieged Gazans.

“I hope that the project will expand and that my life will be more stable and that I can support my parents financially and make people happy,” Hammed says.

Source: Fast Company

Photograph: © Unsplash