A young bidoon entrepreneur reflects on the impact of the pandemic on her community.

English transcript | نسخة عربية

Nationality: Bidoon
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Date of interview: 8 September 2020
Language of interview: Arabic

Noora is talking about work… a lot of work--teaching, organizing theaters, call center work for multiple clinics and telecommunications companies, recording voice overs for news platforms--more jobs than she can mention. Because she is Bidoon, it took her almost two years to finally be given acceptance to university. While waiting, she did any and every kind of job she could, and while at university, and after her 2019 graduation, she continued working. She does not believe in sitting idle. She needs to keep busy. There is no shame in any kind of work and she knows that no matter what she studied, she will never be able to work in a decent-paying job in her field, so it is important for her to be adaptable and bold.

Being Bidoon limits her ever having job security, but COVID has introduced an entirely new level of insecurity beyond her ever present, underlying sense of worry about being able to financially support her family of seven. COVID added the fear of getting sick or losing a loved one.

Then work stopped. The schools where she taught shut down, and they wanted her to work for free, teaching online, in order to keep her job. She refused. Since most salaries for Bidoon are 100-200KWD, even the half-salary offered by some was only 50KWD a month, for full time work. Noora relied on her savings and started to operate from a place of fear. Her family members were also pulling on limited savings and Noora started to plan for the worst. She and her father pooled resources with their neighbor to make sure they all had basic food supplies like flour, non-perishable items, and a furnace, worried that money would run out before things returned to normal. They endured this situation for four months, living on no income and carefully managing their resources, with no money to pay rent. Noura said that they all encouraged each other to stay indoors, to live on bread and canned food because they were intensely worried about what would happen if any one of them got sick. How would they quarantine a member of their family? The apartment was too small and their mother had no immunity. They were very careful and rarely ventured outside.

During COVID, the Ministry of Interior’s Central Agency for Illegal Residents was closed and no one could renew their identity cards unless they had an employment contract. In some ways this came as a relief--everyone felt less stressed as they didn’t have to report in all the time, and could access some services without providing a new ID due to the closure. But for Noora, it was a roadblock. With no employer to provide a contract (the only way to renew her Civil ID during COVID), she was unable to apply for any other opportunities. So with her applications on hold, in July, Noora started her own home business with her last 50KD. She employed her father, and later her mother...her friends supported the business. The experience got Noora to begin to think beyond herself and her family, to the entire community and how other Bidoon women were coping. Did they have a Plan B, C, D? What would happen to them if they couldn’t find employment? She started to help other Bidoon girls set up businesses. When one Bidoon designer could not work because her laptop died, Noora found her a laptop but in exchange, asked her to provide logo designs for other female Bidoon entrepreneurs. Noora’s brothers and their friends did deliveries for her and she found herself supporting a network of people, and helping grow other small businesses.

When things started to open up, Noora’s (self-employed) father had to go back to his job delivering merchandise and caught COVID - then so did the whole family. This put Noora’s home business on hold until the family recovered, but she is hopeful that it will restart soon and many people have reached out to offer support.

“See, this year has offered me growth on a golden platter, full growth in every aspect. Let’s just say- I mean, look, this crisis proved to me what I already knew of myself, which is that I do not give up on things… This crisis has increased my sense of responsibility towards my family, not only towards myself on a personal level, no, no, towards my family as well… This crisis proved to me that with anything I do, I can help a lot of people around me, from my family, to friends to people in need.”

In the clip above, Noora reflects on how COVID-19 has only exacerbated the sense of insecurity she always feels as a Bidoon.

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