AMMAN — Legal restrictions have long limited thousands of
Iraqi migrants and refugees’ ability to work in Jordan. But Saif Al-Ali doesn’t
cite this as the reason it was important for him to start his own company here,
regardless of how difficult it was.
اضافة اعلان
Instead, he cites his father, “My father taught us to only
partner with brothers, not with others,” he explains. “My father is my idol.
When he was sixteen, he started his own company. He’s never worked as an
employee his whole life.”
There are around 67,000 registered Iraqis living in
Jordan, according to UNHCR in 2020.
Saif’s journey to Jordan was typical for many Iraqis in his generation. He left
Baghdad with his two younger brothers for Syria in 2006, three years after the
war began. In 2012, he found himself in Amman for similar reasons.
He began studying architecture in Syria but always had a
love for graphic design that dated as far back as 2007. In the years after
coming to Jordan, Saif established himself by freelancing, until in 2019,
alongside his brother, Ayham, he felt he had sufficient experience and
connections to open his own office, is now called Designs Field. “But if you
want to register a company here in Jordan, you have to have a partner, a
Jordanian partner.”
Saif can’t remember if it was six or seven times that his
business proposal was rejected by the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Supply
because of his nationality. He does remember that during his last visit, he was
finally introduced to an obscure loophole that proved to be the key to his own
office. “One of the employees there told me told me there was a legal sheet, or
let me say, a regulations sheet. You can find it somewhere on the internet. So,
I downloaded it and read it again and again and again and found that I can
register my company as a graphic design office. Not interior design, not
architecture, not fashion design ... Just graphic design.”
To this day, he’s not sure why his field was an exception.
“This was the only word that I could build my whole case on. So, I went back to
this legal facility, and told them ‘this is a sheet from you that says
non-Jordanian people can register a graphic design office here in Jordan.’” It
took yet another two months until everything was approved, and he was able to
establish Designs Field legally.
Two years later, Designs Field is currently moving to
another nearby office, (the old one is too small now.) It was fine when it was
just him and his brother, but now they’ve got a staff, a team of freelancers,
and a large enough client base to focus on expansion. By 2023 he wants an
office in Riyadh. In 2026 he wants another one in Florida.
He has also partnered with Jusoor, an organization that
specializes in assisting non-Jordanian business’ growth in Amman. “We did a
quick survey last year, we asked small businesses and refugees: ‘what are your
top three challenges in Jordan?’ They said: funding and access to finance,”
explained Anas Al-Chalabi, the MENA region entrepreneurship manager at Jusoor.
The second biggest problem that came up was marketing. “With
a lot of them (businesses), we saw that they have a nice product, a good
service but we just need to spread the word about them. ... The services that
Saif was providing were critical to Jusoor’s portfolio of businesses.” Saif
ended up doing the branding for 10 of Jusoor’s businesses, the result of which
Anas described as “a complete makeover”.
As Anas has invested more time focusing on migrant
start-ups, he’s also seen restrictions against Iraqis rapidly reformed in
Jordan, particularly since January 2020. “(The Jordanian government) kind of
realized that, ‘Ok, if we allow refugees and Arab expats to start businesses in
Jordan, we might lose a few job opportunities, but if those businesses grow
they will be able to hire dozens of Jordanian workers.’”
However, he concedes, that with these legal shifts, there
also must be a greater focus on accountability within the Jordanian government.
“The average (term) for a Jordanian minister is a year and four months. So
pretty much every year, you have a new minister, you have a new cabinet and
that kind of destabilizes the entire public sector. ... People are afraid, I
mean (public sector employees think) if I do something that would slightly
jeopardize my career, I might lose my job. That means that’s the end of my
career, no other public sector would hire me.”
Saif experienced this first-hand, Designs Field was never
technically an illegal idea. Regardless,
no one at the ministry wanted to take the risk to approve him. “When I met the
first person there, he told me I can’t. When I met the second person there, he
told me I can’t. When I provided him with the legal paper that says I could
register for a graphic design company here, he said he couldn’t help me, he
told me to ask his manager. And his manager couldn’t help me (either), he told
me to ask his manager, and so on.” he explained.
Saif would like to go back to Iraq one day, though just to
visit. He’s still optimistic about the situation there and feels things will
become steadily more functional, “Hopefully in 10 years’ time”. His father, 58,
is in Baghdad, getting his business restarted. He comes to Jordan from time to
time to visit his three sons, but Saif is hoping to see him again during
Ramadan. He’d like the whole family to be together.
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