Handmade accessories class—Kfair and Ibl Saki groups, Southern Lebanon
"Menna" is an initiative established by Amel Association International as
part of the project on "Promoting Access for Rural and Refugee Women
to the Labor Market and Livelihood Opportunities", funded by UN Women
Fund for Gender Equality. "Menna" provides a networking opportunity to
women by promoting their products as well as linking them to national
and international markets, thus improving their livelihoods.
"Promoting Access for Rural and Refugees
women to the Labor Market and Livelihood
opportunities" project purposes to provide access for productive women to the Lebanese labor market with wider opportunities to grow
and speed their selling rates.
Moreover, we are economically and socially empowering and encouraging women to enter the
workplace including refugee women in Lebanon.
Amel with the UN Women Fund for Gender
Equality had a strategy to integrate the culture
of the regions that women belong to. We intended to link their products with a specific cul-
tural background which is a good element to use
in the marketing campaign.
For instance, in Southern Lebanon; Tyre women
focused on transmitting the Phoenician heritage
through glass painting and artisanal work, while
Marjeion and Hasbaya women benefited from
their land and focused on natural olive oil soap
production; food processing and some revived
their traditional needle work.
As for refugee women coming from Syria, Iraq,
Sudan and other countries, they brought their
colorful touches in handmade accessories, traditional stamping, etc…
Amel aimed at forming an extensive network and providing a
showroom as a market place for the women's products, that
would be the skeleton or wide umbrella for our whole beneficiaries' produces. That was the seed that gave birth to
"MENNA."
Why Menna?
We wanted the name of this network to come from our hearts,
be short, simple, and close to the customer needs as well as reflecting our approach to target and touch the clients as persons
who can feel “us” and there fore “MENNA” was born to reflect
two different faces:
1. Menna – Arabic translation = from us
2. Menna - Arabic abbreviation = our handmade products
Menna Logo
The logo designed for MENNA represents the feminine symbol while including the various
items that women made from their hands as a productive force.
Heading to that target, Amel Association International followed two
fold strategy with practical training, through building capacities, and
technical trainings to enhance better quality of production.
Women were then provided with marketing and sales methodology
and training to increase their revenues by enhancing the relevance of
their produces according to the market needs. This is moreover facilitated by the opening of the MENNA shop.
“THE BEST WAY TO PREDICT FUTURE IS TO INVENT IT”
ALAN KAY
After two years since the project first came to ground, the Amel team
was able to reach these insights:


504 women received awareness sessions in economical
rights, gender discrimination
and self-esteem.
80 % had previously no information about their economical rights and we were soon
able to notice results of
change throughout their encouragement and belief in
their potentials to start learn- 
ing and practicing vocational
trainings and production.
Beneficiaries attending a session
Documentary shooting— Ain Remeneh,
Beirut
ally satisfied the safety requirements before being presented in the shop.
Food Processing, Kfair Southern Lebanon
146 women moved to the
technique of Production trainings according to international standards for the quality control for food processing, handicrafts and organic
soap production. For that
need, the Amel team built a
link with The Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute
(LARI) which is a governmental organization under the supervision of the Ministry of
Agriculture. We were able to
test the women different production items which eventu-

171 productive women received marketing and managerial skills training in Business management, marketing
and IT applied to business.

80% from these women work
in 13 different Civil Society
Organizations . Hence, they
transferred the knowledge to
their colleagues afterwards
while the rest 20% of our
beneficiaries work as individuals in their private businesses.
Glass Painting—Tyre Southern Lebanon
FGE Field Visit and meeting beneficiaries—Southern Lebanon

Almost 130 beneficiaries are
going to present their production in this “Menna” shop. 

Traditional bread baking

Almost 30 women from the
host and refugee communities in rural areas began their
own businesses separately
after receiving the trainings
with Amel.

Some beneficiaries created
their own social media pages
and prepared their own com-
munication tools such as
business cards and flyers.
5 beneficiaries started using
their own branding names as
their own trademarks including two Syrian refugee
women.
15 women in Hasbaya Region
(Southern Lebanon) built up 
a small network among
themselves to form a new cooperative.
Embroidery
www.mennalb.com
01.317 296
Chocolate Preparation
The Amel team was able to
develop a networking training among 50 beneficiaries
from all groups. Thus these
women started to exchange
experiences and link together
providing wider streams of
accessibility to the market,
external trainings and exhibitions.