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(AP) - A textile project in Turkey is helping Syrian women earn some extra money.
But demand for the scarves, hats and toys the refugees produce has slowed and now their income is falling.
These Syrian women are using their skills in knitting and crocheting to make some much-needed money.
They produce scarves, hats, toys and other textiles to sell online.
Fifty-year-old Hadejah Mohammed fled Idlib in 2012 with her husband and children.
When there is work available, she can earn 40 Turkish Lira (14 US dollars) a week for producing two items.
It's not enough money to live on, but Mohammed says it helps.
And there are are benefits to taking part in the program.
"At least this job helps us to do something with our time, otherwise when we sit down we would be thinking all the time about our children, our cousins, our neighbours, what we lost in Syria," she says.
"But when we are working we keep our minds busy."
This initiative is run by the Hekaia, a project started by a Syrian who moved to Canada years ago and wanted to support his fellow countrymen and women when the war broke out.
It has expanded with help from Watan, a UK-based NGO.
What began as a small program helping just 10 Syrian women, has grown many times over.
"We have a large number of women, between 60 and 70," says Nisreen Shakeer, the Hekaia program supervisor.
"We think every woman likes to work with something different: some of them like to do scarves, some others make toys. We try to give each one what she is better skilled at."
The items are advertised on the Hekaia website.
Prices vary: a matching hat and scarf typically costs 50-60 US dollars, while a child's rabbit toy fetches 28 US dollars.
But orders have slowed since Christmas and the women are now making less money.
"If we have small orders we cannot distribute work to all the beneficiaries, just a small number of them," says Shakeer.
"The work now is so slow, and that affected even our employees. Our staff was bigger before now, and now we don't even have staff because we don't have the salaries, we don't even have expenses."
The workshop is based in Reyhanli, a city just a few miles from the Syrian border.
It has doubled its 65,000 original population since the conflict started in the neighbouring country.
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