As part of the “Through Dialogue We Remain and Rise” camp activities, participants spent two wonderful evenings with two families from Sinjar.
Mr. Mousa Ismail’s Muslim family and Mr. Dawood Haji Iskandro’s Yazidi family welcomed the campers, alongside a beautiful gathering of the youth from both families and the creativity of their women in preparing the most famous dishes and delicious pastries.
Mr. Mousa Ismail provided the campers with a detailed explanation of their daily life in Sinjar, living conditions, and community partnership between the city’s Muslim and Yazidi residents before and after the 2014 genocide.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dawood Iskandro described the main activities of the city’s residents, their focus on olive cultivation and oil production, beekeeping, and the types of honey they produce in their orchards, highlighting his vision for the city’s future.
During the two sessions, which lasted until late at night, participants discussed the challenges facing the return of displaced people to Sinjar, conflict resolution mechanisms, and the role of dialogue in restoring coexistence among the city’s residents.
Mrs. Rena Ali Hama summarized the role of women in Sinjar after the liberation and the genocide experienced by the Yazidis, describing this role as complex amid harsh conditions and difficult challenges, some of which include the loss of family members and families still unaware of the fate of their daughters.
She added that water scarcity, global warming, and desertification affect the quantity and quality of crops produced in the city’s fields and orchards, and women bear all these pressures. She emphasized that the psychological condition of women in Sinjar remains abnormal, as they have not received post-trauma programs or compensations that would allow them to develop themselves.
These acquaintance sessions are part of the Dialogue and Understanding Others program, launched by the Masarat Foundation for Cultural and Media Development in cooperation with KAICIID and Beit Al-Taa’ish, in preparation for launching the first joint platform for dialogue among Iraqi youth of different religions to promote mutual understanding.
The “Through Dialogue We Remain and Rise” camp began in Baghdad with the participation of youth from Sinjar, followed by the youth of Baghdad in its first phase, then reached Basra, where young men and women from Basra joined the team, which then went to Dhi Qar and later to Nineveh. It subsequently entered the Old City of Mosul, and now reaches Sinjar and its surroundings, continuing its tour across other Iraqi cities in a program aimed at promoting dialogue as a mechanism for building peace among followers of different religions and rejecting hate speech.
