Palestinian Bahi Aldabba works on a car sketch inside his office in Gaza City, Oct. 22, 2019. Many people aspire to be car designers, but few make it. Bahi Aldabba from the Palestinian Gaza Strip has already started his journey to become a professional car designer. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)
by Emad Drimly
GAZA, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Many people aspire to be car designers, but few make it. Bahi Aldabba from the Palestinian Gaza Strip has already started his journey to become a professional car designer.
Although the Gaza Strip has no car industries, Aldabba, in his early 20s, keeps developing his talent despite obstacles and difficulties caused by the deteriorating political, social and economic conditions in the Israel-blockaded territory.
Talented people should have full confidence in their abilities "which will one day enable them to reach their goals," he said, citing the difficult political conditions of Gaza which has been under a tight Israeli blockade since 2007.
"I started with drawing car bodies on my classroom desk. I then developed my skills and talent and drew my own designs," Aldabba told Xinhua.
Aldabba combined his talent with science as he enrolled in a vocational-technical high school, specializing in automotive mechanics. It notably improved his talent, leading him to study at the multimedia college.
"Multimedia is a huge world ... It allowed me to do my designs using the computer instead of drawing on design papers," the young designer said.
Aldabba followed his dream and recently made his first own design of a BMW car that he named I-9. He sent the design to the German giant and won admiration from company officials.
"I received a positive response from BMW, but they said they cannot use it, because they only rely on designs made by the company's official design team," Aldabba noted.
The company told Aldabba that he has to go to BMW's headquarters in Germany to get some advanced training courses on how to do design sketches, which my later help him become a BMW designer.
But the Israeli blockade on Gaza and travel restrictions prevented Adabba from achieving his dream.
"I did not have enough money to afford to travel and live abroad," he said sadly.
Young people in Gaza are the most affected by the blockade, which has led to their unprecedented unemployment, as well as the spread of extreme poverty in the absence of a clear future.
According to the official Palestinian statistics agency, the unemployment rate among the young Palestinians increased to 45 percent in 2018, with 36 percent among men and 70 percent among women.
Aldabba, who dreams of working for Mercedes-Benz, keeps contacting large car manufacturers, but always gets the same answer that he has to leave Gaza.
"The Palestinian youth are capable of achieving the impossible tasks, but all we have to do is to believe in ourselves and our enormous potential," Aldabba said.
"I hope that Gaza will become an advanced industrial zone, where the youth's energies can be well tapped at home," he added.
