GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Talking to Majd Mashharawi in Amman’s Books@Cafe, it is clear that she is used to making difficult decisions. She explains that when she was 18, her father gave her a choice: Either get married or go to a university. She chose to study civil engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza where the male-female ratio was 6-to-1. She was told that such a decision would lead nowhere.

Two years after her graduation, she had already claimed international attention by finding a way to use ashes and rubble to make concrete building blocks that were cheaper, more environmentally friendly and more readily available for the community in which she lives.

“In Gaza, we have a whole lot of nothing. I aim to create something from that nothing,” she told Al-Monitor, explaining that her company GreenCake, has so far created jobs for over 30 people, a great proportion of whom are newly graduated female and male students from the University of Gaza. Employment is rare in Gaza’s crippled economy, where 56% of graduates were unemployed in 2017, according to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ figures.

“This block is not only a building block, it changed the stereotype about women in Gaza,” Mashharawi proudly declared, highlighting that the company has female employees in all aspects of the production process, a rare phenomenon in Gaza’s conservative society. “I see myself founding a social movement that calls for people's rights in the Gaza Strip. And to be able to do that, we need people who believe in the same mission and vision that I believe in.”