Through a project started by Italian priests and designers, Iraqi women who have fled to Jordan as refugees make and sell clothes.

Sarah Nael is sewing a shirt in a church in Jordan for "Rafedin." This is a project that has taught dozens of women who fled violence in nearby Iraq how to make a living.

Many of the women escaped the extreme violence of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group's self-proclaimed "caliphate," which covered large parts of Iraq and Syria, and ended up in Jordan, where they couldn't find work.

"Life here is very, very hard, and if we don't work, we can't live," said Nael, a Christian from the northern Iraqi town of Qaraqosh who is 25 years old and has been working on the Rafedin sewing project for two years.

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Rafedin is based out of the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Amman, which is the capital of Jordan. It was started in 2016 by an Italian priest, Mario Cornioli, and Italian designers and tailors.

Dresses, jackets, belts, and ties are among the items that are sold in Amman and Italy to raise money.

Refugees can't get regular jobs, so this project gives them a way to supplement the help they get from the United Nations.

"It's a safe place," said Nael, who has learned how to make clothes out of cloth and leather while her brother works in the church's kitchen. "We're from Iraq. It is against the law for us to work anywhere."

Cornioli hopes that people will know the Rafedin fashion label. Rafedin means "two rivers," which is the historical name for the area of Iraq between the Euphrates and the Tigris.

The priest wants the project to be able to pay for itself so that he can train more women in need.

Even though ISIL fighters were forced out of Iraq by a US-led alliance at the end of 2017, many of the refugees are still too afraid to go back to their war-torn homes, and many are still waiting for their painfully slow asylum applications to other countries to be processed.

"This project gave them something to do and helped them get by during this time," Cornioli said. 

"They just want to get out of there."

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES