Ramouseh is a large suburb of Aleppo, Syria, characterized by a large industrial area and a large bus station, where lines to other Syrian cities stop. The professional activity of Roland, a young man of 44 years, until before the outbreak of the war (in 2011) was linked to the nature of this neighborhood: in fact, he ran a fairly important business of spare parts for cars and buses. Unfortunately, with the worsening of the Syrian conflict, not only did he lose everything he owned here in Ramouseh, but he also suffered a head injury. A situation that changed his life. He lost his job, and he lost – for a few months – even the ability to reorganize his professional activity in the city of Aleppo itself.
ROLAND’S TALENT FOR BUSINESS
Once recovered, Roland had to start all over again and, in his journey of professional rebirth, he found the important support of the RestarT project, thanks to which he was able to buy back a certain quantity of spare parts for cars and buses so as to return to organizing their marketing.
Roland has a very rigorous method of managing his business: at the end of the day he punctually records every movement of goods, what has entered and what has left his new workshop, and this ensures that he has a clear idea of the daily trend of his profits. Which are now definitely not lacking and which – indeed – “draw” an upward parabola. The RestarT team in Aleppo has highly valued Roland’s entrepreneurial ability, his talent in making the initial investment profitable. And has therefore decided to provide him with a second support to give a new boost to his business. Roland has therefore bought additional spare goods to fill the shop, thus managing to satisfy the needs of a greater number of customers, furthermore his prices are very competitive in the Aleppo market, in terms of cost and quality. The result of this mix between Roland’s entrepreneurial ability and the support and supervision of the team RestarT And a net profit almost doubled.
SOLIDARITY, SHARING AND RECIPROCITY
But there is more to Roland’s life than business. The goal of his days is not just profit. Man has learned from his life experience that solidarity, sharing and reciprocity save a community. In fact, the protagonist of this beautiful adventure in the Ramouseh neighborhood of Aleppo helps people less fortunate than him by providing them with money and food. He dreams that everything can return to the reality of before the war. It is not easy, of course, but he is doing his best.
