“At 52, I don’t just carry the weight of my past—I wear my resilience like a badge of honor. I’ve survived gender-based violence, raised my children through hardship, and today, I stand proud as part of the Cash for Work kitchen team. Every meal I prepare is part of my healing, part of reclaiming my story. Mine is not just a story of survival—it’s a quiet revolution, a living testament to the strength it takes to begin again.”
Batoul is one of 214 women at the community kitchen led by INITIATE’s in Partnership with UN Women, and the Union of Tyre Municipalities with generous funding by the Republic of Korea.
At just 15 years old, amid the turmoil of the 1988 Lebanese Civil War, Batoul was withdrawn from school and engaged to her cousin.. “We were eight girls and one boy,” she recalls. “During the war, girls were seen as burdens. My parents thought marrying us off was the only way to keep us safe.”
“I was married at 20, stepping into what I thought would be a home—but it quickly became a prison. For years, I lived in silence, enduring isolation, control, and violent abuse. One night, my husband pointed a gun at me and our son. That moment shattered the silence. When he was finally imprisoned, I seized my chance—I filed for divorce and began the long road to reclaim my freedom.
But freedom didn’t come easily. I had no formal education, no safety net—just a determination to survive. I took any job I could find: folding clothes in a shop, baking bread, even assisting in mine exploration. Each job pushed me to my limits. I taught myself to sew, working long hours for little pay, all while raising my son alone after losing both of my parents.
It was never easy, but every challenge became part of the foundation I’m standing on today.”
And then, the kitchen opened its doors.
“It was more than a job,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “It was a lifeline.”
At the Cash For Work kitchen in Tyre , Batoul found more than employment. She found healing, sisterhood, and a long-lost sense of self-worth. There, amid the clack of pots, she began to reclaim her voice.
“We cook, we laugh, we share stories. We do calming exercises together. It’s like therapy but with aprons on,” she says with a smile.
Batoul no longer stays silent. She speaks up. She shares her ideas. She dreams again of going back to school, of telling every girl she meets to never give up on learning.
“Education is protection,” she says. “If I had stayed in school, maybe things would’ve been different. But now, I tell girls your future is worth fighting for.”
Batoul’s transformation is proof that when women are given the tools and space to rise, they do and they lift others with them.
“In the kitchen, I found my strength again,” she says. “And the biggest lesson I’ve learned? When a woman gains a skill, a job, a purpose, she changes everything.”
