Celebrating World Refugee Day in Iraq
Every year on June 20, World Refugee Day, Peace Winds joins in honoring the strength and courage of the nearly 114 million people worldwide who have been forced to flee their homes due to threats such as violence, economic hardship, and food insecurity. This year, Peace Winds staff commemorated World Refugee Day by restoring a dilapidated volleyball court in the Domiz 1 Camp for Syrian refugees.
Located near the city of Duhok in the northwestern part of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), the Domiz 1 Camp has been home to nearly 29,000 Syrian refugees over the past decade, more than any other camp in Iraq. The refugees, who fled war and persecution in their country, have few chances to take part in sports and recreational activities. Volleyball is a popular sport in the region, and the youth who live in the camps benefit in terms of physical and mental health from having spaces for recreation and social interaction. With this in mind, our teams in Duhok resurfaced and repainted the outdoor court, installed a new net, and distributed new uniforms and volleyballs to a group of young refugees who were excited to play the game. Check out the video below to see more from the volleyball court restoration.
On World Refugee day, the Peace Winds team in Duhok also sponsored a booth at a UNHCR event in the nearby Family Mall. The event helped raise awareness among local residents about the everyday lives of refugees living in their midst and strengthen ties between refugees and their host community. Refugees and staff members working at the booth highlighted Peace Winds’ vocational training centers by displaying the tools that are available for refugees to use, and they showed a range of handmade crafts that refugees are making in their training courses.
Although news coverage has diminished, the Syrian refugee crisis remains the largest in the world, with 14 million Syrians displaced from their homes since the civil war began in 2011. Iraq is now home to about 270,000 Syrian refugees, and Peace Winds remains committed to supporting Syrian refugee camp residents in the camps near Erbil and Duhok in the Kurdistan region.
One program that supports this goal is the workshops and tool centers, which Peace Winds has built in seven camps near Erbil and Duhok to provide Syrian refugees with vocational training. Here, training courses are available in areas such as carpentry, masonry, plumbing, welding, and electricity. This helps participants gain marketable skills they can use to take advantage of work opportunities both inside and outside the camps. The tool centers also offer a ‘library’ of tools which are available for refugees to use free of charge for home repairs as well as for outside construction jobs, saving them considerable time and money.
In addition to supporting the refugees who take courses and borrow tools at the tool centers and workshops, Peace Winds makes it a priority to hire refugees to work as technicians at the centers. Many of the technicians are women who have entered into the construction field despite ongoing prejudices, and nearly half of the refugees who reported using the tool centers last year were women. Some of these female refugees are the heads of their household due to being widowed or having a husband who is disabled. They often report an increased sense of independence at being able to perform their own household tasks and repairs rather than relying on family, friends, or paid contractors. Last month, more than 3,000 refugees made use of the tool centers’ tool lending and training course opportunities.
In honor of World Refugee Day, Peace Winds spoke to two technicians, Ghson and Wadeaa, who work at the tool center in the Gawilan camp for Syrian refugees in Duhok, Iraq. Both women are refugees from Syria, and they say that despite the challenges presented by life in the camps and in their field of work, they enjoy helping others learn new skills, especially women, disabled, and elderly refugees. Check out the video below to watch the full interview with Ghson and Wadeaa.
Peace Winds would like to thank our donors and supporters who make it possible to carry out programs for refugees in Iraq and around the world. The restoration of the volleyball court was funded by contributions from individual supporters. Meanwhile, the shelter and livelihoods program for Syrian refugees is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration along with the U.S. Consulate General Erbil.
