When Art Became Home
When Art Became Home
December 1, 2025 | Navar Maarri
Sidra grew up in Deir Ezzor, Syria, and was only a teenager when the war began. It hit her during her early years of high school, a time when she should have been thinking about her future, not survival. The war left a deep emotional impact on her, and when her family managed to leave for Türkiye, she had already been away from school for more than a year. Through everything, one thing never left her: art. Drawing, crafting, and making things with her hands became her way to breathe.
When she settled in Gaziantep, she joined art courses and applied to Güzel Sanatlar Lisesi, the Fine Arts High School. The school almost never accepted foreign students, but her high exam scores opened the door for her. She was the only Syrian student there, and the first two years were not easy. She often felt like the outsider, but her teachers noticed her talent, supported her, and believed in her. She even represented the school in official visits. Looking back, she still sees that period as one of the most meaningful parts of her early life.
After graduating in 2018, she continued developing her skills through different courses. She took part in major exhibitions and worked as an art teacher in private schools. She was preparing for a large exhibition with more than 30 paintings and handcrafted pieces when the earthquake struck. In a single minute, everything she had worked on was gone. It was a heavy loss, and it took her months to find her balance again.
In 2023 she opened a small center of her own and named it Davinci Atölye, inspired by the artist she had always admired. It started with courses for children, and within two months she expanded them to include women as well. She began offering training in art, crafts, candle-making, graphic design, digital marketing, and video editing. What mattered to her most was giving women a real chance to learn something they could use in their lives. “I wanted to give women the opportunity I once wished someone had given me, a skill they can use to earn and feel independent,” she said.
Sidra joined the Building Markets network through the project supporting women-owned MSEs in the earthquake-affected region, with the generous support of Islamic Relief USA. During the trainings and mentorship sessions she attended with many other women, she realized how helpful it is to have someone guide you, especially when you are running a small business and trying to figure things out on your own. In the mentorship session, she found out she had almost 200,000 TL in unpaid taxes and financial obligations that her accountant had never mentioned. And that made her understand how important it is to have the right information at the right time, sometimes it can save a business from serious trouble.
Recently and with the support and guidance she received, Sidra started selling the products she, her team, and the women in her courses create. As more families began returning to Syria, she noticed a change in demand and understood that she needed to reach a wider audience. “I realized I couldn’t depend only on Syrian customers anymore, I needed to reach the Turkish market too,” she says.
This pushed her to study the Turkish market more closely. She spent months learning how to use major e-commerce platforms like Trendyol and Hepsiburada, two of Türkiye’s most widely used online marketplaces. “I opened stores on Trendyol and Hepsiburada and spent months learning how to manage them,” she explains. “The response surprised me, more than 250 orders in just two months on one platform.”
This growth encouraged her to expand into wholesale, and her products are now available in several shops across Gaziantep.
Her team now includes five women, both Syrian and Turkish, and she hopes to grow it to ten in the coming months as demand continues to increase.
Sidra often says she grew up in a home where people valued stability over taking risks. She says, "No one in my family ever thought about starting something of their own. Maybe that is why I work with such intensity and passion, sometimes more than I should, because I want to build a life different from the one I came from."
This project is being implemented with the generous support of Islamic Relief USA. Any views expressed herein are solely those of Building Markets.
