Women building an economy: Protest org helps women-owned businesses hurt by Israel-Hamas war

Most of Liraz Lavi Assor's work as a copywriter and creative marketing expert came from word of mouth, and she mostly worked with locals and local municipalities or authorities near her home in Mivtahim, a small moshav at the Gaza border communities.

That is until October 7, when Lavi Assor found herself evacuated to Eilat after Hamas terrorists killed residents of her moshav and the neighboring one.

"Suddenly life stopped, and with it naturally work also stopped," she said.

Lavi Assor realized that because she had always found clients through word-of-mouth, she didn't have a digital footprint or a way to show her work to new prospective clients.

"Then I heard about the Bonot Calcala initiative. They give an incredible framework - a professional and supportive and attentive framework," she said, adding that they even built her an "amazing website."

Bonot Calcala (women building the economy) is an initiative of the women's protest organization Bonot Alternativa (women building an alternative), well known for their Handmaid's Tale protest installations during protests of the judicial overhaul. Bonot Calcala is the organization's largest project and around half a million shekels were invested in.

Marketing and financial support

It is a support system initiated by the organization to help women freelancers and make business information available to women on the background of the economic damage caused by the war.

The initiative includes a marketing and financial support system for women-owned small businesses.

The business community created by the organization includes around 250 female freelancers.

Twice as many women as men were put on unpaid leave during the war, the organization said, explaining the need for the initiative. Around 53% of women reported lowered work productivity compared to 39% of men, and 72% of female employees lowered their work hours at their own expense, the organization reported.

"A month after the war broke out, we understood that alongside the impacts of the war on men (long reserve service, loss of income, closing businesses, etc.) there was a very widespread impact on women," said Inbal Gilboa-Amir, deputy CEO of Bonot Alternativa.

Many women's businesses were hurt by the war, which led Bonot Alternativa to step in. "We got in the picture, built them websites, created a new community for them, rebranded their businesses and more," said Gilboa-Amir.

The project also partnered with Link 19, a digital agency in Sderot that hires women from the area, meaning women evacuated due to the war were building sites for other female evacuees, meaning the project helped even more women.

Lavi Assor said that she is currently still focused on her family, but will soon be ready to get her business up and running again.

"I know that as soon as I am ready to start focusing on employment I already have the option to send people links to the site, to talk to people, to represent myself and my work in a worthy way - all the credit for that goes to them," she said of the help from the organization.

You can visit Lavi Assor's new website here: https://www.bona-creative.com/