Women's Activity in the Arab World: The Awakening of the Damascene Woman

The Awakening of the Damascene Woman Society was founded in 1927, and laid down for itself a program summed up in the following articles:

Calling woman to keep pace with the march of progress in what suits her surroundings; encouraging woman and helping her to bear the burdens of practical life; and easing the way to the independent occupations that enable her to support herself, etc. —

And stirring up the national industries and striving to better their condition, and helping respectable families in straitened circumstances. Upon its founding it took a club as the seat of its social and charitable works; there is no need for us to recount those works — we shall content ourselves with mentioning the works of the past year.

It organized monthly lectures, inviting eminent professors to deliver them to the ladies at its club; among them we mention: al-Maghribi, al-Siba'i, al-Kilani, Zayn al-Din, al-Samman, etc. These lectures had a great effect in giving woman a sound scholarly direction, for they were on scientific, social, literary, and religious subjects. It held an exhibition at which some handwork and national manufactures were shown, visited by upwards of five hundred ladies. The members of the association visited the hospitals — such as the Ibn al-Nafis and Ibn Sina hospitals and the leprosarium — consoling, and distributing food and clothing among the sick. It opened a branch to teach needy girls, free of charge, the principles of sewing and cutting. It likewise opened another branch for the teaching of the English language, but the teacher's departure prevented the lessons from continuing. It has a small library holding nearly two hundred books, frequented by the members and by some girls for reading and study; but financial straits stand between us, at the present time, and the enlarging of the library by the purchase of the books it needs. And from time to time some useful literary gatherings are held by the members in the hall of the club.

The association also took a hand in many charitable and social matters. The association's one concern in the past year was the care of founding the embroidery and sewing workshop, with the aim of giving work to poor hands and training woman in honorable earning. This workshop has gone forward with wide strides despite the smallness of its capital, and several families with no breadwinner have lived from behind it. Its projects laid down for the new year may be summed up in the following:

First — buying tools and machines for sewing and embroidery, in order to give work to the largest possible number of needy girls, and widening the scope of its workshop so that its benefit may be complete, in view of the pressing need for it.

Second — enlarging its small library, buying various scientific books, and subscribing to some useful magazines.

Third — holding literary debates on various subjects, and setting valuable prizes for the outstanding, with the aim of drawing the girls to reading and study and of fostering the spirit of oratory and declamation in their souls.

Fourth — organizing weekly lessons by some men of letters and professors — besides the monthly lectures — to be delivered to the ladies.

Fifth — visiting the prisons at appointed times, to offer the prisoners the necessary counsel and guidance.

Sixth — making the round of the villages to give their inhabitants lessons in following the principles of health and cleanliness, and providing the expenses of those journeys.

Seventh — reviving the old handicrafts that have died out, drawing the ladies to their use, and showing them at the exhibition of handwork and national manufactures which the association wishes to hold this year on a wide scale.

Eighth — renting a spacious club by whose means it can carry out its program and hold its literary parties.

As for the association's expenses, they are large in proportion to its slender revenues, which do not go beyond the members' subscriptions — the members number forty — and the proceeds of a single party a year; while the rent of the club and its costs exceed a thousand Syrian liras, apart from the heavy expenses of the workshop, which weigh upon its budget, and the distributions it makes to the poor on every occasion — all of which drives the members to make up the deficit out of their own pockets. At the end of this year it held a “lottery,” whose meager proceeds did not pay off even a part of the great expenses of its club. Its club stands in the Salihiyya–Jisr quarter, in the Ayyubi Building.

In sum, the Awakening of the Woman Society has for eighteen years been struggling and contending for the realization of its lofty aims. We pray God to help it continue in the service of its greater Arab homeland, through the zeal of those who stand at its head — and we single out among them the president, Mrs. Suad Mardam Bey, and the secretary, Miss Naima al-Maghribi.