Her father had left for Germany where he got a legal status as a refugee. Later Abeer’s mother and siblings went to Germany as well for a family reunification. “As I was over 18 years old I was not allowed to join them”.

“Now I work here in this company. Thanks to United Work I found a legal job. Without them I would not have this job as executive assistant for the operations manager. He is Syrian too. This is one of the many Syrian companies in Turkey.”

Ana Clinic, the company she is employed in is part of the fast expanding health tourism sector. It is a call center that has a contract with a plastic surgery clinic, where hair transplants are the most popular procedure. Most of Abeer’s colleagues are Turkish and Syrian, but there are also workers from Italy, Spain and Morocco. “I feel good and happy here. People are very kind and friendly”, Abeer says.

Abeer, who is single, lives in an appartment with a Syrian friend in the Beylikdüzü district, a suburb on the western edge of Istanbul. “My roommate is a student. Her family is in Qatar”. Abeer only has to commute for 25 minutes by metrobus to get to her work. She works 9 hours per day, five and a half day per week.

This young Syrian woman is one of the many examples of Syrians who succeeded to change their status from refugee to employee. “United Work changed my life”, she says with a smile.

“I found a comfort zone here in this job. Because of this job I got via United Work I decided to get a Turkish citizenship. I plan to stay here in Turkey”.

Her years in Turkey as a refugee thaught her that ‘it is really difficult for a Syrian to find a job here’. “In may places they didn’t pay me. And if they get to know that you are Syrian they don’t want to work with you anymore”.

In September 2012 she escaped the war in her country with her mom and dad. Her oldest brother lives in Saudi Arabia. Her younger brother was in Lebanon and joined his family in Turkey three years ago.

Shahed was not able to graduate from high school as she had to leave her war-torn country before her final exams. Before she tried to restart her education in Turkey she lived for one-and-a-half years in Egypt.

In Istanbul she tried for three consecutive years to enter a Turkish high school. “In the third year, during the entrance exam for Syrians, I missed only 0.5 points, that’s two questions! And I was like ‘that’s it! I want to start working’.

She heard about the program ‘From Refugee to Employee’ by Dutch NGO United Work in Istanbul and contacted them. “They found me a job here in Galata at the Turkish online wedding marketplace Düğün (Wedding). I work here now for two months at the telesales department. Here I feel happy. I call to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. As I lived in Egypt and was with my brother for two months in Saudi Arabia I am familiar with their different Arabic accents too. So that helps”.

Düğün is Turkey’s dominant online wedding marketplace where young couples can connect with numerous dress shops, restaurants, photographers, bands, hotels, juwelers, hair dressers, lingerieshops. In 2015 Düğün opened an Arabic-language site called Zafaf.net (Wedding). They have expanded into a dozen countries.

“Our star market is Saudi Arabia”, CEO Emek Kirbiyik says. “Every year there are 160,000 weddings in Saudi Arabia. 25 Percent of them used our platform. We have at the moment a sales team of 4 in Saudi Arabia”.

United Work didn’t only give Shahed an opportunity to get a legal job and a work permit. Mr. Kirbiyik doesn’t hide his enthusiasm either. “United Work helps us in a super way to find proper Syrian workers”.

Yasmin had studied environmental engineering for one year at university in Aleppo. But in Istanbul she wasn’t able to continue her education ‘because I didn’t speak Turkish and because of the financial situation of my family’.

So she started to work. “That was hard for me as I worked for the first time ever. In Syria I didn’t work. In Istanbul I had many jobs. In one company I quit my job after one month as they didn’t pay me. At a factory for glasses and sunglasses in Silivri I worked as well. They were a connection of my father, who is a businessman. In Syria my father imported glasses and accessoires from that factory. Within two months I left my job. I didn’t like it there”.

Yasmin started learning Turkish at TÖMER. “That was not easy, but I practised a lot. In the metrobus for instance I spoke to anybody, specially old passengers.”

Yasmin loves art and fashion. At Aydın Istanbul University she continued her education with a 50 percent scholarship. Not environmental engineering anymore. She decided to study fashion design. And graduated after two years.

She wanted to make some money too, so in the second semester she started teaching Arabic and English at a private school. “I worked in art exhibitions as a hostess as well”.

When she heard about the Dutch ngo United Work offering training and jobs for Syrian refugees she applied and did a training course. “At the end of the course they asked if I would like to work for them. Of course I said yes. It is important what they do at United Work and I like to help Syrian refugees, specially Syrian women. I became a consultant for the women department. I find the women via social media. They also find us through word of mouth”.

Her plans and ambitions fort he future?

“I want to establish my own fashion business, first online. I chose a name already: ‘La Maison de Yasmin’.