Selling Roses at Gaza’s Streets: German-Style Innovation to Fight Unemployment

Al-Turks sell roses on bikes in public places in Gaza. (Photo: via SAFA)

Palestinian Yasser Al-Turk, 23, put an end to his three-year-unemployment after he came up with a new idea: selling roses at Gaza’s streets using a bicycle by adopting a German-style of selling roses, which he says adds beauty to the streets of Gaza.

Al-Turk rides his bicycle, along with his brother, Mohanad, and his cousin, Ali, all wearing the same uniform – a black cap and white shirt – selling their roses at Gaza’s various streets and public places. This successful idea is the first of its kind in Gaza and has received the praise of locals.

Al-Turk explains that selling roses on bicycles is common in urban areas in Germany, and was an idea which he liked and adopted. He came across the idea after surfing the web in an attempt to find a project that costs little and allows him to live in dignity.

Al-Turk says that only one person in the Arab world in Kuwait sells roses in public spaces, and he enhanced the idea by decorating the bicycles with baskets.

He plans to expand his project by having a roses’ delivery service, he says.

Al-Turk sells both natural and artificial roses. Most importantly, in addition to selling his roses, he draws smiles on the faces of Palestinians in Gaza, who have been exhausted by ten years of siege and internal division.

Al-Turk is an accounting graduate from the University College of Applied Sciences but, along with many other young Gazans, has faced unemployed due to the siege imposed on Gaza.

According to the International Labor Organization, 43 percent of Gazans are unemployed, among which 202,000 are graduates.

“Youths should not give in to despair. They should come up with new ideas to start their own business,” he concludes.

(PC, SAFA)

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