An-Najah News - In the old city of nablus handcrafted straw and wood brooms are made by professional people,they lost the bless of sight but they had the bless of determintaion, creativity and the power of acheiving hard work effeciently.
The story of Mahmoud Dabous and his colleagues is not only about turning straw and wood into art pieces that every home needs, with a hand craft that can be hard for anybody to make not only for visually impaired people but also for normal people it requires both a muscular and mental effort.

The craftsman Mahmoud Dabbous said to Al-Najah: "I went to the Lutheran Federation to learn this craft because it was the only craft that I can do as a visually impaired person and actually work with it so we appeal people to buy the association products so it can open a door for visually impaired people to work freely without asking people for help or money."
 
He took a pin that coordinated the sticks, and arranged them one by one, to make a bundle, taking their final shape, into a broom of coordinated to become a natural straw.

This profession is one of the difficult professions that accustoms its workers to poor health. Sitting for long hours can cause a realy bad backache and it can affect the feet too due to lack of movement.

Craftsmen work as a beehive cell in order to earn a living with the sweat of their forehead, but many difficulties stand in their way. The support received by the Association for the Care of the Blind is very scarce, except for the invasion of ready-made brooms that fight hand-made, which led to a decline in the percentage of demand for it.

The blind craftsman Imad Salameh said: "We face many difficulties in terms of marketing the product. In the past, people preferred manual work over the importer, but with the high cost of straw, the high price of wood, and the invasion of imported goods to the market, there was a reluctance from the local product."

Craftsmen work as a beehive to earn living By the sweat of their brow to make items that represnt the original Palestinian heritage, which  preserve this profession for the next generation.

Business prospects and knowledge doors will be opened for them to integrate with society effectively 

Imad Aldien Salmeh said: "As a worker, there is no difficulty to work, the only hard thing is marketing because in the past the local product was trustworthy and they used to buy our work because of the low production cost also hand made products are more preferable but unfortunately today everything costs are very expensive. Ten years ago, the price per one was no more than 4 Shekels, but today it may reach 18 Shekels .This profession still retreated but it faces the danger of disappearance, specially after the development of the manufacture of plastic cleaners and the Chinese products that filled the markets but those craftmen work to preserve their national identity.