The Sewing Kit

One evening, my phone rang. The number was unknown. I hesitated for a second, but back in those times, relief work consumed my every waking moment, and I couldn’t live with myself if I ignored a call that might be someone’s only hope.

A woman’s voice came through, shaken yet firm. She sputtered, as if afraid the line might disconnect. She had gotten my number from a trusted source. She didn’t ask for food, shelter, or money. She begged for only one thing: a pan and a few kitchen utensils.

She had fled Baalbeck with her family, leaving behind everything but the clothes on their backs. They had found temporary refuge in a small, barren room in an unfamiliar place, but she had nothing to cook with. No pot to boil water, no spoon to stir, no knife to chop. Her voice cracked as she explained how her children sat hungry, not for lack of food, but for the simple means to prepare it.

The next day, I found her. A modest woman, her eyes filled with gratitude and exhaustion. I handed her the bag with the pan, utensils, and a few extra essentials. As she reached for it, I saw her hands—hands that had once kneaded dough, peeled vegetables, and made coffee for loved ones in a home that no longer existed.

Before I left, I placed one more item in her hand: a sewing kit. She looked up at me, confused. “In case you need to mend something,” I told her.

A few days later, my phone rang. It was her again.  She asked if I could come over. She needed to show me something.

I went. 

When she opened the door, she stood before me with open hands, wearing a nightgown that now resembled a Aabaya. She smiled through her tears.

War does not just destroy homes. It uproots people, fractures families, plants fear where certainty used to be. And for this woman, the chance to mend something with her own hands meant more than survival. It was proof that she could still rebuild, stitch by stitch, even in exile.

Her story is one among thousands. And yet, it is hers alone.

Lebanese-Israeli War 2024.

War is often told through headlines, casualty counts, and sweeping narratives of national loss. Within these generalized accounts, the individual, and especially the woman, usually folds into a collective experience that overlooks her personal suffering, resilience, and survival. This project seeks to break that silence by documenting the voices of displaced women, whose lives were irrevocably changed by war but whose stories rarely find space in public memory.

Through a series of deeply personal testimonies gathered from women in shelters and displacement homes in Lebanon’s underprivileged urban peripheries, particularly in regions like the Bekaa and Baalback, we aim to highlight the layered and often invisible impact of conflict on women. These areas receive minimal attention from the government, and many are underdeveloped, with weak infrastructure making it more difficult to live a dignified life.

The testimonies collected in this project are not just about displacement; they are about motherhood under fire, generational trauma, loss without closure, and strength in the face of abandonment. They reflect how women carry war in their bodies, silences, and quiet acts of endurance. By centering their voices, we challenge the dominant, family-centered narratives of war and bring forward a gendered lens that reveals the intimate and often overlooked dimensions of conflict.

This project is both an act of documentation and of recognition. It insists that women’s experiences during war are not secondary; instead, they are central. Their voices deserve to be heard not as background noise to the chaos, but as the heartbeat of survival itself.