File:"The training is good, it's great. It helps us to learn and to earn a living" (11173845336).jpg

Nahed* is from Homs in Syria.

"I was living happily there before the conflict started", she says.

"But after it began, the situation became mixed-up. We decided to come to Lebanon, because I was afraid for my children. They were traumatised by what they had seen and heard."

"The cooperative and IRC offered us this work making fishing nets here. The training is good, it's great. It helps us to learn and to earn a living."

"I hope to be able to sell the nets to get some income, to be able to support my family."

Learning how to knit fishing nets might not seem the most urgent priority for refugees who fled Syria’s civil war, yet the International Rescue Committee believes that providing the essential tools to help people to find work is a vital way to help them support themselves.

The women also learn how to finish nets by sewing weights and floats to them. The nets are then ready for sale to local fishermen. There’s certainly an art to the craft; it takes months of practice to become expert. Once fully trained it is possible for one woman to knit a 100-meter or 300 foot long fishing net in just three hours.

The UK has committed over £800 million to help those affected by the conflict in Syria - our largest ever response to a humanitarian crisis.

In addition to livelihoods projects like this one, UK funding is providing support including food, medical care and relief items for over a million people - people who have been affected by the fighting but are still inside Syria and those who have fled the country and become refugees in neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.