The story of a Saudi widow who turned into an entrepreneur

By Marwa Mahmoud

A Saudi widow with 7 children was able to be a model in entrepreneurship, when she started her career path from scratch, to secure a source of income for her and her family.

She opened a restaurant serving popular meals in the Jizan region – southwest of Saudi Arabia – to be a source of livelihood for a number of Saudi girls. Join her in the restaurant.

“Alia Khabrani” spoke to “Al Arabiya.net” by saying: “The beginning of my project was after a call from the” Grass “Association for Orphan Care in Jazan, and my nomination to join a training course in cooking for two months, although I was good at cooking,

Alia said I was preparing a number Of dishes and food in my house, in order to sell them and provide an allowance for the children of orphans.

She added, “While attending the course, my child was accompanying me. One of the officials asked me why I brought the child, and my answer was: i have no person who can take care of her during my  training course.

After completing the training course he advised me to visit the institute Reyada that will take care of me.

She indicated that she applied to the institute, entered the study stage, and faced many difficulties in opening her restaurant, especially as she is a widow and alone,

Alia said the restaurant needed great efforts in reviewing government departments, in addition to the need for her children to pay attention and prepare them for schools.

She thought a lot to back down from her project, but her persistence and the search for a source of livelihood for her children was the reason for continuing her efforts to open the restaurant.

Alia indicated that: “After opening the restaurant and starting to provide popular meals to customers, I worked with my children in the restaurant, after a short period of time a number of girls began applying to work with me, until there were 9 girls in the restaurant who practiced cooking and serving meals.”