Roland is one of the protagonists of the Amu-Edc RestarT project, ‘Restart to stay’, who has discovered the power of reciprocity
source: AMU
Ramouseh is a large suburb of Aleppo, Syria, characterised by a vast industrial area and a large bus station, where direct lines to other Syrian cities stop. Until the war broke out (in 2011), the professional activity of Roland, a 44-year-old man, was linked to the nature of this neighbourhood: he managed a fairly important business selling spare parts for cars and buses. Unfortunately, with the escalation of the Syrian conflict, not only did he lose everything he owned here in Ramouseh, but he also suffered a head injury. This was a situation that changed his life. He lost his job, and he also lost – for a few months – the ability to reorganise his professional activity in the very city of Aleppo.
Roland's entrepreneurial talent
Once he had recovered, Roland had to start all over again and, on his path to professional rebirth, he found important support from the
RestarT project thanks to which he was able to buy back a certain quantity of spare parts for cars and buses and return to organising their sale.
Roland has a very strict method for managing his business: at the end of each day he carefully records every movement of mechandise, accounting for what has entered and what has left his new workshop, and this means he has a clear picture of his daily profits. And he certainly has plenty of profits now, and they are even on an upward trend.
Roland's entrepreneurial skills and the talent that he invested in making the initial investment pay off were highly appreciated by the Aleppo RestarT team. And so they decided to give him a second helping hand to give his business a boost. Roland then bought more replacement goods to fill the shop, thus managing to meet the needs of a larger number of customers. What's more, his prices are very competitive in the Aleppo market, both in terms of cost and quality. The result of this mix between Roland's entrepreneurial ability and the support and supervision of RestarT team is that the net profit has almost doubled.
In two years, Roland has grown his business of spare parts for cars and buses, and he was able to increase his profits and return to the pre-war conditions. He is now able to take care of his entire family: his wife and his parents. However, he has decided to go one step further.
Solidarity, Sharing and Reciprocity
Business isn't the only thing in Roland's life. The aim of his daily work isn't simply profit. Roland has learnt from his life experience that solidarity, sharing and reciprocity can save a community. And at 44 years of age he has enthusiastically embraced the principle of reciprocity that is a fundamental part of RestarT: those who benefit from the project are provided with everything they need to start their own business, but they must then return 50% of what they received in cash, and the remainder in the form of goods and services to be offered to the community. Roland didn't hesitate and immediately committed himself to helping some families in need. But he thought that this wasn't enough and reached out to the other protagonists of RestarT.
Roland began to support some small projects that had not received the second round of funding from RestarT, because they did not meet the programme criteria. By doing this, he wanted to strengthen the small businesses that had been started in his city, Aleppo, and ensure that their owners did not lose faith in their capabilities and work.
Here are a couple of examples. He bought a considerable number of drinks and paper cups from Elias, the young man who runs a small café that reopened in 2023. Elias was happy and grateful for this helping hand reaching out to him in a very difficult time.
Roland also went to the rescue of Michel, who runs a small food shop: the man was going through a difficult financial period due to the lack of work, and was no longer able to pay his loan instalments. Roland paid the remaining balance and also bought a large quantity of goods from Michel. Once again, the real benefit was not only financial: the help that Roland was able to give his merchant friends in Aleppo has a value that cannot be measured in money.
But Roland still has other projects to realise. We'll see what other ‘free gifts’ he is going to give us.
