In a modest workshop on the edge of Darayya, the steady rhythm of needle and thread marks a new chapter in Om Feras’s life. At 38, she crafts intricate embroidery and guides a small team of five craftswomen—work that she calls nothing short of a miracle after years defined by displacement and grief.

In 2012, as fighting closed in on her neighborhood, Om Feras fled with her family to a nearby town. Months later, her husband vanished. Four years on, Syrian authorities confirmed he had died. “Those were the hardest years,” she recalls. “We left our home and lost everything. Suddenly, I was solely responsible for three young sons.”

When the violence ebbed, she returned to Darayya, rebuilt her home piece by piece, and began rebuilding herself as well. Along the way, she found love again and recently remarried—another step toward the life she promised her boys.

The turning point came during displacement, when she discovered an initiative teaching women handicraft skills and helping them market their work. With no prior experience, she joined, learned the language of stitches and patterns, and rose quickly—eventually becoming team leader of the Sama Handmade project. “After losing my husband and our house, I had to find a way to stand on my own,” she says. “I started small—knitting and selling little items. The work grew, and I became responsible for 30 women with Sama.” What began as survival became a calling that strengthened both her family’s finances and her own sense of self.

“I used to be shy,” she admits, “but now people tell me I’m strong.” Through leadership and craft, she has challenged expectations about Syrian women and their place in the workforce. Today, the workshop is more than a workplace—it’s a community, a place where skill meets dignity, and where every embroidered motif carries a story of perseverance.

Most of all, it is home. “One of the hardest things was living away from our city,” she says. “I kept telling my sons that one day we would return to the land where we belong.” With each stitch, Om Feras is fulfilling that promise—threading resilience into opportunity, and loss into leadership.