On 4 December 2015, a new humanitarian shipment of medical equipment, medicines, winter tents and blankets arrived at the Turkish-Iraqi border in Ibrahim Khali/Zako for the population of Rojava, the Kurdish-majority area of Syria resisting the advance of Daesh (Islamic State) in the region.
The shipment, ordered by the Italian Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), departed from the UN Depot (UNHRD) in Brindisi bound for Dohuk, in the Autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan (KRG), where it was taken over for distribution.
The shipment, with a total value of 80,000 euro, consists of medical equipment, medicines, 70 winter tents and 450 blankets, which will meet the needs of more than 20,000 people.
The medicines are destined for hospitals in Rojava, in particular the one in the city of Qamishlo, and for the 15 Kurdish Red Crescent health centres we support, to reach as far as Kobane, the city that symbolises the resistance against Daesh.
Instead, winter tents and blankets will be distributed in the two refugee camps of Newroz and Roj, which have sheltered thousands of displaced Ezidə who fled Sinjar and are still forced to live in precarious conditions.
This is the third expedition destined for the people of Rojava, after those already carried out in May 2015 thanks to the collaboration between MAECI, the Tavola Valdese's Eight Per Thousand Office and Un Ponte Per.
Considering the difficulty of access to Syrian territory, the arrival of this aid is extremely important for the winter. Tents and blankets in particular will be of extreme help to the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons in Syria.
In October 2015, thanks to UNDP support, we launched a new intervention plan in Iraq dedicated to peacebuilding. The project - 'Nineveh Paths to Social Cohesion, Coexistence and Peace' is aimed at the communities that had inhabited the Nineveh Plain area for thousands of years before the area was conquered by Daesh during its advance towards Mosul in the summer of 2014.
The vast Nineveh Plateau has always been characterised by the heterogeneity of its communities
Christian, Ezid, Turkoman, Assyrian, Chaldean and Shabak communities that have been settled in the area for millennia with the Muslim population, and all of whom have been forced to flee due to the violence of the conflict.
These communities and displaced people are the target of the intervention plan, with the aim of building together a future of peace, coexistence and social cohesion in view of an eventual return to Nineveh, when it is freed from the presence of Daesh.
The first step towards return is in fact to work to avoid cross-sectarian vendettas, the formation of spontaneous militias on a confessional basis, and episodes of violence and discrimination that aggravate the already existing state of tension. Without profound work on social recomposition, Iraq will continue to be torn apart by internal conflicts and sectarian violence.
This is why, together with the communities of the Nineveh Plain and Iraqi civil society organisations, we devised 'Nineveh Paths', a programme that involved five religious communities, four mayors, the Provincial Council and the Governor of the area, and 15 local associations (supporting as many micro-projects), as well as a large number of religious leaders, community leaders, activists, young people and women. The aim was to strengthen civil society and community leadership on issues of dialogue, reconciliation, mediation, coexistence and peace building.
From October 2015 to February 2016, the response from local partners exceeded the project's objectives, which will continue in 2017. Here are some of the results achieved in the first phase of work, in partnership with the Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR):
Creation of the Peace Council
The Nineveh Provincial Council hosted several meetings with tribal, religious and minority community leaders all from the area, and with women, youth, artists and civil society organisations, which resulted in the creation of the Nineveh Peace Council.
Filming for a documentary
Filming has begun on the documentary "Heroes of Nineveh", which will follow the work of the communities and organisations involved in the project. The first shootings followed the trainings organised with women and young people, while later on ample space will be dedicated to the direct testimonies and personal stories of activists involved in peacebuilding initiatives in the area.
Creation of Local Peace Committees
The mayors of Wana, Rabi'a, Zumar and Sinuni, involved in the programme, continued and expanded their efforts to promote reconciliation, peace and coexistence by hosting meetings with religious and community leaders, and establishing Local Peace Committees for each area. Mayors and local authorities also involved young people, women and leaders of their communities in trainings on dialogue, peace-building and the involvement of women as key actors in conflict resolution.
The Nineveh Women's Peace Alliance
Women activists, community women and leaders of civil society organisations and local and provincial authorities have created the Nineveh Women's Alliance for Peace. The Alliance brings together women from tribal, religious and minority communities to work together in the promotion of coexistence, peace and reconciliation and for the empowerment of women, encouraging them to participate in the peacebuilding process.
Trauma care with Sharya's Ezid women and intra-community dialogue
Fifty-four Azerbaijani women victims of violence were involved in conflict trauma training in the Sharya IDP camp. In contrast, the local organisations 'Al-Tahrir' and 'RID' started a series of meetings in Wana, Rabi'a, Zumar and Sinuni on the topic of coexistence and community dialogue building processes.
Peace Journalism
The local association 'Peace and Freedom Organisation of Kurdistan' organised training courses with 18 young journalists on the use of social media and Peace Journalism. They will now be able to convey messages of reconciliation, peace and coexistence through social and traditional media.
Opening of the Zumar Peace Youth Centre
Young activists from Zumar opened the Youth Peace Centre, bringing together young people from different communities to start clearing rubble and rebuilding war-affected areas, focusing on youth empowerment and their involvement in peacebuilding activities. Local authorities have expressed their wish that similar centres be opened in other cities to prevent radicalisation and sectarian violence, encouraging them to play an active role in reconstruction, reconciliation and dialogue.
The Ashti camp in Ainkawa - a Christian neighbourhood in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan - is home to over 5,000 internally displaced Iraqis, mostly from the Christian and Ezidic communities, who fled the Nineveh Plain and Mosul area following the advance of Daesh in the summer of 2014.
Of these, almost 1,500 are children: the future generations of a divided country that has known only war for decades. Children driven out of the place where they were born, forced to survive in caravans donated by international associations and agencies, or worse still in tents where temperatures reach 60 degrees and where in summer you can even die of heat.
In the camp, the greatest need was for a school, so that the boys and girls would not have to travel kilometres in summer and winter to reach the nearest one. We had been working with these communities for years as part of our programme 'Yalla Nila'ab' (Let's go and play), financed by the Italian Cooperation, which had to be interrupted because of the Daesh attack on the Nineveh plain. It envisaged the renovation of four schools for minority children, all in Mosul, the area currently in the hands of the Caliphate. We have long hoped to be able to return to the occupied villages, but the wait has become too long.
We then chose to readjust the project to the new situation, starting work on a 'mobile' school in the Ashti camp, consisting of caravans that can be dismantled and transported when the communities can return to the liberated areas.
The school, capable of accommodating 700 children between the ages of 6 and 12, was inaugurated on 30 September 2015. Work on its construction started in August and continued throughout the summer. Thanks to the work and enthusiasm of the many people involved in this project, we were able to fulfil the commitment we had made: to finish the school in time for the start of the new school year.
Between 2015 and 2016, training sessions, teacher training, and extracurricular recreational activities for children were held at the school. The construction of a covered outdoor playground was also completed, and the school was equipped with desks, chairs, blackboards and a computer room thanks to the solidarity of many donations. It was also the focus of the first street art intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan, thanks to the 'No Fear' project, which resulted in several murals created to decorate the school.
'Ibtisam' (Smile), is a psycho-social support project for children, carried out in five schools in Iraqi Kurdistan (KRG) thanks to the support of Caritas Switzerland.
The idea was born during the Iraqi humanitarian emergency of 2003, when the outbreak of violence in Baghdad caused the first large wave of displaced people forced to flee the city and find refuge in the Iraqi Kurdistan region and northern Iraq. The objective at the time was to provide Arabic curricula for displaced students in a region where the curricula were exclusively in Kurdish, and to provide safe spaces and recreational activities for children through the rehabilitation of 5 schools in the Nineveh Plain and Erbil Governorate areas.
A first phase of the intervention was planned in 2012. That same year, following the outbreak of the humanitarian emergency in Syria, the schools also took in child refugees fleeing their country and finding refuge in Iraq. Then, in the summer of 2014, the advance of Daesh in Iraq created a new wave of violence: some of the areas where we operated were occupied, the number of people displaced increased dramatically.
This is why our intervention has changed over the months. Funds for activities were used for first emergency distributions, then for school kits, and finally we moved with the fleeing communities, following them on their long journey to find a safe place to live.
Today 'Ibtisam' is in its second phase, and will continue until the end of 2017. The number of schools involved has grown from 5 to 13, with a total of 4,600 children accommodated thanks to the commitment of teachers, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists who took part in our training sessions, play therapy sessions, resilience groups and other activities essential for children to overcome the trauma of war. Schools, those of 'Ibtisam', which have also become examples of integration between children from different backgrounds, but united by having had to live through terrible situations.
An intervention designed to recreate in the schools and inside the classrooms that climate of serenity and normality that is lacking in emergency situations and displacement conditions, to allow children to continue their schooling, but also to imagine a future free of fear. Last year's work yielded exciting results: in addition to the many children who benefited from it, the Erbil Mental Health Department chose to use it as a model for the modernisation of its facilities, in an attempt to integrate the education and mental health sectors. This is in line with our approach, which also sees the emergency as an opportunity to improve pre-existing conditions. In order to build a future in which there is no longer any need for humanitarian interventions, and the good things we have built together can remain, becoming a collective heritage.
On 29 May 2015, the second humanitarian shipment of medical equipment and basic medicines for the people of Rojava arrived at the Syrian-Iraqi border.
The shipment of medicines, ordered by the Italian Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, departed from the UN depot in Brindisi bound for Dohuk, in the Autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan, where it was taken over by our operators for subsequent distribution.
Rojava borders Turkey to the north, which keeps its borders closed, and to the south is a long front against Daesh militias. We broke this siege through Iraqi Kurdistan, which has a small border point with Rojava. The shipment, worth a total of 90,000 euro, consisted of medical equipment, basic medicines and other materials needed to provide initial care for 20,000 traumatised patientsə.
This is the first important official gesture of support for the Kurdish-majority area of Syria by Italian institutions. After the battle of Kobane, they had long been looking for a way to support Rojava and its people, who are building a unique model for the area of secularism, self-government, and co-existence between Kurdish, Yazidi, Christian, and Arab communities.
We received the Italian shipment in Iraqi Kurdistan and took care of all stages of transport to Syria and the Rojava area, where the aid was distributed thanks to the Kurdish Red Crescent.
This expedition follows by a few days the one that took place between 2 and 3 May 2015, when a first shipment of humanitarian aid destined for the population of Rojava was delivered by Un Ponte Per thanks to the extraordinary contribution of the Tavola Valdese's Ufficio Otto per mille. In that case too, the shipment was composed of medicines that could not be found in the area, specifically for the treatment of cancer patients and intended for about 6,000 people in Rojava, which were distributed to the hospitals of Derik/Al Malikiah and Qamishlo.
Between 2 and 3 May 2015, we delivered the first shipment of humanitarian aid to Rojava, the Kurdish-majority area of Syria. Thanks to the support of the Tavola Valdese's Eight Per Thousand Office, it was possible less than two months after our first mission to the area.
We are back in Rojava. During our first visit, we had promised to support this battle to build a peaceful future. We had assured our friends of support in their defence against the barbarity of Daesh.
We crossed the only section of the Iraq-Syria border that remains outside the control of Daesh, a stretch of the Tigris river controlled by Iraqi Kurdish authorities, to bring a first load of medicines to Rojava, thanks to the extraordinary contribution of the Eight by Mile Office of the Waldensian Table.
Medicines which were specifically requested by the Kurdish Red Crescent in Rojava and which will be distributed in the coming weeks in the hospitals of DerikAl Malikiah and Qamishlo, as well as in the Newroz refugee camp. The drugs, which cannot be found in the area, are specifically for the treatment of cancer patients and will help around 6,000 people living in the Cizire Canton.
he destination of our humanitarian convoy was the new Kurdish Red Crescent Centre, where workers provide health services and medicines free of charge to the population of Derik. In the centre, in addition to the pharmacy, there is a paediatric room for women and children and a surgery room.
The Centre's medical workers, mostly volunteers, have a mobile unit with which they are able to reach remote areas of the Canton and those most exposed to Daesh attacks. Doctors who risk their lives on a daily basis to do their job and try to provide an essential service to a population caught between the grip of Daesh and the de facto embargo imposed by Turkey.
A minimal but necessary gesture towards the difficulties Rojava is forced to face in order for the democratic principles underpinning regional autonomy to survive.
During our mission we had met the new mayor of Derik/Al Malikiah: a 27-year-old woman, an engineer, elected as an independent because of her expertise in infrastructure development. Her election was a pleasant confirmation for us that the institutions of participatory democracy are really working here, despite the emergency of war.
Accompanied by Red Crescent doctors, we visited the refugee camps. We had already visited the Newroz camp: it is still home to over 5,000 refugees, but last summer over 100,000 had arrived here, and the few volunteer medics had been faced with a real humanitarian emergency with thousands of medical visits every day.
In the meantime, a new camp has sprung up, for about 50 Iraqi families from Zummar province. There is nothing in this camp apart from tents, everything from toilets to a children's centre is missing, and no international humanitarian organisation has ever entered it.
We met with the 'Women's House', a central institution in the construction of the pluralist democracy project. When we arrived there were women of all ages, both Kurdish and Arab, gathered in an assembly to discuss how to concretely deal with the cases of women who need help. The centre has the possibility to sit as a civil party in court in gender violence trials. The activists told us of their immense efforts to reach out door to door to every woman in the canton and explain what their rights are, trying to involve them in social and political life.
The next step will be to open other paths of concrete solidarity towards Rojava. We will do this by sending a new shipment of medicines shortly in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And, as our friends from the Red Crescent have asked us, by organising some training on trauma care.
The 'Out of the Siege' project, launched in 2015, has three objectives.
The first is to continue the work in Iraq to safeguard the cultural heritage of the many millenary minorities that make up its cultural mosaic, too often victims of violence and persecution, as their heritage is at risk of destruction. After 12 years of work with the 'Knowledge that Resists' programme to protect their immense cultural heritage, which is always at risk of destruction, 'Out of the siege' includes a specific training component for the digitisation, restoration and preservation of ancient books and manuscripts. All minority communities work together in a process that fosters mutual understanding, dialogue and trust-building.
The second area of intervention is dedicated to minority youth: with the Universities of Dohuk and Erbil, spaces dedicated to social and cultural activities will be created in order to foster knowledge and dialogue. There are in fact hundreds of thousands of displaced persons from minorities who have arrived in Kurdish territory following the advance of Daesh in the area, and it is important to work on their integration with members of the host communities.
The third area of the programme again concerns young people, but in this case Syrian refugees in Iraq and Lebanon. And it aims to train them in non-violent conflict resolution and how to create networks of activists to think together about alternatives for peace in the Middle East region.
Journalism courses will also be organised in Beirut for the creation of a network based on non-violent language and the promotion of activities related to peace issues and activism from below, thanks to the work of the Permanent Peace Movement (PMP), our long-standing partner in conflict transformation projects.
Not only emergency: this is the idea behind this new intervention programme.
We are convinced that it is necessary to build dialogue and knowledge of each other's cultures, starting from civil societies that in Iraq as in Lebanon have had direct experience of civil war and conflict, and have chosen non-violence and peace as their response.
To stand by the Syrian refugee community in Jordan, but also by the host community. With a special focus on women, who bear the heaviest burden of uprooting due to the war: this was the aim of "Sahti!" (My Health), an intervention project carried out in Jordan in 2015, in line with what was previously done with the "Hemayati" programme.
Supported by the Italian Cooperation and carried out with the Jordanian Women's Union (JWU), it focused on the health and protection of women and their families.
Two team leaders, an accountant, three general practitioners, four nurses, a dentist, an ophthalmologist, a psychologist, two lawyers, two social workers: this was the team that worked in three JWU clinics in Amman, Irbid and Zarqa. In six months of work, we have provided health, dental and ophthalmic assistance to over 4,300 women; 450 have received psycho-social care, while 104 have received legal assistance and 130 victims of violence have found a safe place to stay thanks to a shelter provided.
Added to this was, as always, the intervention of a mobile clinic, always ready to intervene in cases of need or for the free distribution of medicines.
This intervention was part of years of work in Jordan with refugee and host communities, which we continue to carry out with numerous projects. Welcoming, protecting, supporting and guiding those fleeing war and trying to rebuild a normal life: this remains the main focus of our work.
One year of work, 4 local organisations involved, 30,906 displaced Iraqis in the governorates of Dohuk and Erbil assisted, including 3,000 children: these are the numbers of 'Safe', a humanitarian assistance programme that saw us engaged in 2015 thanks to the support of Caritas Switzerland, aimed particularly at the most disadvantaged families affected by the crisis in Iraq.
An emergency within an emergency that concerned them, which we tackled through two main activities: periodic distributions of food, hygiene and winter kits to face the cold season with dignity, as well as school kits and those medicines that are not provided free of charge by the national health care programme. And psycho-social support activities for children between the ages of 5 and 18.
"SAFE: Emergency Response Programme to assist Iraqi minorities at risk" saw us engaged together with some of our long-standing partners - Al Mesalla, the Yazidi Solidarity and Fraternity League, Yawm al Hurya and Gashboun - each with their own experience behind them and their own specialisation in the field of humanitarian intervention.
Before going into action with the distributions, we carried out field surveys with the partners to identify the needs of the families (108 in Erbil and 274 in Dohuk), to have them explain to us what was needed, and to find the most useful and effective intervention space for each situation.
From November 2014 to December 2015, thanks to this joint effort, we distributed food kits for 1,000 families, delivered 1,200 hygiene kits and 1,400 blankets, stoves and winter clothes. Over the course of a year, five rounds of humanitarian aid distributions reached more than 20,000 people.
At the same time, the psycho-social support and medical care component of the project was structured to provide support to families and especially children. Thanks to a mobile unit, social workers and psychologists reached the informal settlements, providing medical assistance to 10,650 people, including 3,000 children.
In Shekhan, a psycho-social support centre was set up, run by a psychologist, supported by 3 local operators, where numerous recreational activities for children, play therapy sessions and trauma support were organised. We distributed over 1,000 school kits to facilitate school access to the displaced communities.
Providing psychosocial support, child protection, creating safe places where the trauma of violence can be identified - and possibly treated.
These are the issues at the heart of our 'Ahlain!' (Welcome) project, supported by UNICEF, for the protection of and assistance to displaced Iraqi children, who have fled the war and the fury of Daesh in Iraq.
The intervention focuses on the governorate of Dohuk, where thousands of Iraqi families, mostly belonging to the Ezid and Christian communities of the Nineveh Plain and Sinjar area, have found refuge since the summer of 2014, when Daesh advanced into Mosul and the surrounding territories.
The project, now in its second phase and active for the whole of 2016, takes place in the IDP camps where families have found shelter - particularly in those of Bjet Kandala and Sharya - but also in the urban area of Sheikhan, where since the beginning of the crisis we have worked to identify families in particular need, who had remained excluded from the formal circuit of reception and support services.
It was precisely in Sheikhan that we had intervened with some humanitarian aid and initial assistance programmes at the beginning of the emergency, in the summer of 2014, and we continue to operate there by providing psycho-social support, mental health, care and protection services for displaced children and support for their families, with awareness-raising meetings on issues of protection from violence towards children and women.
We also work in the governorate's mental health facilities, in collaboration with doctors and specialists, referring the most delicate cases that are identified, to treat the traumas of war that threaten to seize the future of so many children.
By organising specific training for operatorsə, and supporting existing family mutual aid groups, we are attempting to plant those seeds that will enable the fruit of this work to be harvested in the future, including through the creation of databases that will be useful for monitoring the quality of the intervention, so that it can also be useful when this emergency is over.
"At the same time, 'Ahlein' envisages the creation of three stable clinics to provide psycho-social support, while a mobile unit provides counselling and therapy where it is most needed, visiting families in the areas where they have found accommodation.
As always, the aim of the project is to pay special attention to the groups that feel the effects of conflict the most, and who pay the highest price for this new state of emergency: children.
Like the other health and education programmes, 'Ahlain!' also fits into a broader framework of work in which we are involved in the protection of children in conflict areas, particularly in Syria and Iraq.
