Athar Al Haa

Home / Athar Al Haa

Hiba Abu Dahouk

Founder

Hiba grew up Bedouin, learning from her grandmother and the women of her tribe how life is made from simple things — how wool becomes a tent, how a voice becomes a song, how an embroidered garment becomes a document of who you are. Forced displacement brought her family from open land to the city, and with it came discrimination and the painful erasure of a culture treated as a footnote. Her grandmother's return brought back the songs, the garments, and the stories — and changed how Hiba saw them. When she returned to Bedouin areas as a wife and mother, she found those same women's skills being stolen and exploited by those who profited from their need. Hiba founded Athar Al Haa because she understood that what she was protecting was not just craft — it was an entire civilization carried in women's hands.

Athar Al Haa

Hiba Abu Dahouk

Athar Al Haa was founded to protect what displacement and marginalization have long threatened: the living cultural memory of Palestinian Bedouin women. The project creates a dignified space for Bedouin women to work, tell their own stories, and preserve an inheritance — in fabric, song, color, and craft — that has been passed down without ever being written down. Where others have exploited these skills and extracted cultural symbols without consent or credit, Athar Al Haa builds a platform that recognizes women’s cultural ownership and turns heritage into a source of sustainable livelihood.

Through intergenerational gatherings, Athar Al Haa preserves Palestinian Bedouin cultural heritage while enabling women to pass on knowledge, protect cultural ownership, and produce heritage-based crafts and clothing.