Iraq. A Peace Bus going through the country

It was the young men and women at our Mosul Youth Centre who came up with the the idea of travelling around the country on a “Peace Bus”. The project was funded by our Christmas campaign: “Ogni dopoguerra ha bisogno di alleati“. (literally “Allies are needed in the postwar period”).

During one of our “Peace Workshops”, safe and welcoming environments designed to give young Iraqi men and women the chance to gather and develop ideas together, in the spirit of collaboration and mutual understanding. And to work on campaigns like the “Peace Bus” which they enthusiastically proposed and developed.

They worked on this project with the men and women of the Conflict Prevention Teams founded in each Youth Centre, who have been working for months on various initiatives around Mosul and throughout the Nineveh Plain.

They celebrate all the most important festivities together including Iftar, the end of the Muslim fast, when they bring food to Muslim families. And they celebrate the new year with the Yezidi community, attaching small posies to their doors, in keeping with tradition.

Other joint activities include organising a whole neighbourhood clean-up, or repainting the walls of a school which had been defaced by Daesh.

“The basic idea behind the Peace Bus is very simple: we want to bring a message of peace from Mosul, especially to the Arabic-Sunni community and all the communities who suffered the Daesh occupation, which encouraged fear and mistrust of Arabs. We are working on a series of initiatives in the countryside and Nineveh’s remotest villages, because by celebrating religious rituals and festivities together, we hope it will encourage people from different cultures and traditions to get to know each other and overcome their fears”, explain the project developers.

We are proud to have supported this project from the very beginning, and we look forward to hearing their next project proposals.