Rafedìn is a sewing, tailoring and leather goods workshop that houses Iraqi refugee girls who have fled Isis.

The workshop is located at the premises of Mar Yousef Parish in Amman: here the girls learn the art of tailoring in a safe and serene space where they can socialize while developing their talents and acquiring new professional skills that will be useful to them in the future. In fact, the girls live in Jordan waiting for visas, often for Australia or Canada, so they can rejoin other family members or acquaintances. And this wait can last for years.

Rafedìn offers them a social network, a training and work space, and a monthly reimbursement (made from sales of the products themselves) that helps them build their future.

Since Rafedìn’s inception in 2016, about 150 girls have taken our courses and left for a new country with a wealth of acquired skills, ready to start, a second time, a new life.

The project was created thanks to the contribution of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and is being developed with the support of the French Embassy in Amman and of UNICEF Jordan, which supported it during the pandemic period.

Rafedìn is an Aramaic word meaning “land between the two rivers” (the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Mesopotamia), and this name was chosen by the first girl beneficiaries of the project to remember their land.

Thanks to the experience of Italian seamstresses who have passed on their knowledge to the girls, Rafedìn’s products are a combination of Italian style and local fabrics and testify to the bond that unites the Middle East and the West.

Thanks to Rosaria Mininno, a seamstress who has been following the project from the beginning, fashion designer Antonella Mazzoni and tailor Mohsen, who unfortunately left us suddenly: with them the girls learned to design and produce high-quality garments and accessories. The quality of the products and their uniqueness arehave immediately won the interest of the press and the local market in Amman and are highly appreciated by workshop’s visitors.