Could you sponsor a sewing sister this #givingtuesday?
They may not make headlines every day, but the atrocities committed by ISIS in northern Iraq are as raw as ever for the women whose lives have been shattered.
Take Suha, who is 26 years old and deaf. Although she escaped from ISIS, she lost most of her family, and now lives in a camp with her uncle. And there’s Koze, a 29-year-old woman whose husband was murdered, leaving her to bring up their four children alone. With no income, she has to rely on the kindness of others just to feed her family.
But Suha and Koze are not alone. Ever since ISIS began its reign of terror in 2014, thousands of Yazidi women like them have been desperately trying to rebuild their lives and put the past behind them.
This is where you can help.
The Lotus Flower are funding women in one of the camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Duhok so they can learn to sew, and make textile-based products they can then sell. By enabling our ‘Sewing Sisters’ to make a living, they can regain financial independence and keep socially active, which will also help heal their psychological and emotional wounds.
A donation of just £20 will help us buy the sewing machines and fabrics they need, as well as employ staff to train them. It’s an entirely sustainable form of aid, which has the potential to change these women’s lives forever.
The Sewing Sisters project was set up by The Lotus Flower charity, whose founder Taban Shoresh has her own, very personal reasons for wanting to help the Yazidi women.
As a child, Taban survived genocide and political imprisonment under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Now in her early thirties, she was utterly horrified when she returned to her homeland in 2014 and saw a second genocide being waged by ISIS.
She established The Lotus Flower in her living room, and since then, has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the Yazidis’ plight.
Thank you.
