Hama– The veterinarian, Abd al -Rahman al -Sheikh Ghanama, was not imagined that a small project, the size of a coffee booth and does not exceed an area of square meters, will give him a feeling of independence and success for more than the years of his university studies. After graduating from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Hama, Abdul Rahman collided with a difficult reality: there are no job opportunities, feasible salaries, or a clear future in his competence.
“I founded my project with a relative participation of me, which helped me with a simple capital, and I started applying my thoughts after I monitored the poor situation of the country when I graduated,” says Abdul Rahman. From a modest kiosk called “Kafi Benz”, he was able to build a special identity for him in the city, by offering coffee in innovative ways with simple local sweets.
The story of this young man is not an exception, but rather one of dozens of stories that are repeated daily in Hama (central Syria), where university graduates turn into small projects, after the doors of jobs were closed in front of them, in the public or private sectors.
Lack of opportunities and the exploitation of the labor market
After graduating from a wide gap between the academic qualification and practical reality. The labor market is in light of the economic collapse, the exit of merchants, and the stagnation that the country has suffered since 2016, all of which have prompted the graduates to search for alternative paths. In the absence of effective government policies to accommodate young energies, small projects have become an inevitable haven.
The young man, Hawari, graduated in 2024 from the Faculty of Commerce and Economics, the e -marketing department, and he was late until he was 34 years old because of his attempt to avoid compulsory service during the era of the ousted regime.
“I spent years at the university, I moved between years of failure so that I would not go to the army. When I graduated, the regime had fallen, but the shock was in the labor market,” said Ward.
After a long search, he faced the proposal of the proposed salaries, “The offers that I received did not exceed 20 dollars per month for 10 working hours per day.”
And because he did not have capital, he began to think about a project that did not need to be funded, so his idea was to organize and coordinate parties and events, and although it was not a familiar idea in the city, it opened a new path for him.
He established a small office, in which it works today with a limited team to organize weddings and parties. And he confirms that his project has become the source of his primary income, and he hopes to build his future away from government or private jobs that “no longer means anything in the current reality.”
Inspiring individual experiences
Rama Jumaa Shehoud, a graduate of the Institute of Fine and Applied Arts in Hama in 2024, was not better. “I looked for work that suits me, like the education profession, but the weak salary was an obstacle in front of me,” she says in her interview with Al -Jazeera Net. “I went to a small project option that could give me independence, so I started selling and renting evening dresses, and practiced my hobby in fashion design and sewing,” she added.
“I formed a small team and opened a store with simple help from my family,” says Rama. Thanks to its design, it was able to achieve success in just two months, and now aspires to expand its work and open branches in the rest of the provinces.
“I advise every young man and a young woman to start from his passion for, and to set goals accompanying his study career, because achieving success requires a decision to start, whatever the conditions are difficult.”
Market control and low salaries
In light of the deteriorating economic reality, pressure on Syrian youth is intensified, especially in a city such as Hama, which witnessed the displacement of capital and the migration of merchants. Unemployment has risen to large levels, but the scene is clear in the local markets.
Journalist Nidal Al -Yassin from the newspaper “Hama Al -Youm” indicates that the graduates suffer from a clear exploitation in the labor market, adding, “There are a large number of young people who accept low salaries only because they do not have alternative options, and the owners of money are taking advantage of the lack of opportunities and the large number of job seekers.”
He adds, “The government sector, in turn, is unable to absorb the huge amount of graduates, despite the recent presidential decree issued on June 19, and raising the minimum government wages to more than 750 thousand pounds (equivalent to $ 72). But this number is still not enough, and there are no real actual opportunities to employ tens of thousands of graduates.”
Al -Yassin asserts that the spread of electronic sales projects, the trade of imported clothes via the Internet, and the marketing of handicrafts on social media platforms, are all indications of the graduates ’desire to get out of the waiting cycle and join the work of the work, even if it is completely out of their competence.
Between the individual initiative and the absence of public policies
These models refer to an exciting fact for meditation, as the Syrian educational system does not keep pace with the needs of the market, and the government does not provide economic ground that allows youth to operate, which causes graduates to rely on themselves.
Despite the inspiring individual initiatives, small projects cannot be considered a sufficient solution Unemployment Structuralism.
The question remains open: How long will graduates of Syrian universities remain suspended between an academic ambition that is no longer feasible, and an economic reality that gives them only limited options? Is it possible to build actual national policies that transform these individual initiatives into a productive system that creates opportunities and rebuilding confidence between the university and the labor market?