Silk brings hope for the future - 18th August 2023

Above Antakya city, Turkey, is a workshop. It's for making silk. The workshop belongs to the Duman family. They started making silk years ago. The workshop's on the old silk road from China.

The Dumans' silk is special. It's kind to the silkworms. It doesn't kill them. So Duman silk is 'peace silk'.

Emel Duman: "When I found out more about how silk is made, I realised that our elders, who sold silk cocoons, kept some and that at the end of the process, these were transformed into butterflies. Our elders, who wasted nothing and respected nature, used these cocoon remains to make clothes and sheets. So I said to myself that I should also produce in this way, without harming the silkworms, by letting them become butterflies."

In February, there was a terrible earthquake here. The earthquake killed 50,000 people. The Dumans lost their home. They started living in the workshop. They let 100 other people live there too.

Before, 70 people worked for them. Many were women. Only 7 of them came back.

The Dumans were worried about starting again.

Emel Duman: "After the earthquake, for two months we couldn't think about ourselves at all. All we could think about was how to help others, that we were alive and that it was our duty. After two months, we asked ourselves what we could do here in our production and above all, we received a lot of supportive calls, from people who wanted us to get back on our feet and get back to work and who wanted to place orders with us."

People from Syria started working there. So now, the business is producing silk again.

This traditional work's good for the Antakya area. A few months ago, there were 3,000 businesses for silk and other fabrics.

Now, you can hear the noise of silk-making. Life is starting again.