Support Families and Animals at the Healing Garden

Planting tree in our Healing Garden in Chamchamal

Psychotherapist and clients… 

We celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a historic global commitment, marked its 75th anniversary on December 10, 2023.

Every year, our team celebrates Human Rights Day with people of different ethnicities and backgrounds in different locations to raise awareness about human rights.

This year, our Human Rights Education Program team organized activities for children in the Healing Garden in Chamchamal, Mosul, Erbil, and Kirkuk. 83 children from host community, IDP and refugee camps participated in our educational and fun activities. These activities aim to introduce children's rights to the participants through various drawing and game activities.

 

Ending violence against women is possible, but only if we Act Together, Now!

The global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is a key international moment to call for an end to violence against women and girls. It runs from 25th November (the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) until 10th December, Human Rights Day.

 

In support of this campaign, our team joined the international campaign “UNITE! Invest to prevent violence against women and girls”. The campaign calls on citizens to show how much they care about ending violence against women and girls by sharing the actions they are taking to create a world free from violence towards women. The campaign this year also asks governments all around the world to disclose the resources they are allocating to the prevention of gender-based violence.

 

We sincerely Thank you for all your support throughout the year. Without you, none of our work would be possible.

Links:

• https://jiyan.org/donate/

• Planting tree in our Healing Garden in Chamchamal (DOCX)
• Women at the Healing Garden in Chamchamal (DOCX)

Dear Friend of Jiyan Foundation, 

We have made every effort to utilise natural resources in the design and daily operations of the Healing Garden in Chamchamal. 

The goal is to build a space that will provide psychological and social support to the women and children who have survived acts of violence, terrorism, and genocide, which also integrates sustainable and green technologies.

We use a very eco-friendly water-cleaning system that provides the garden with the essential fluids needed to grow and thrive. Daily, 100,000 litres of grey water from nearby households gets cleaned and made useable for the garden, entirely without chemicals.

You can support us in our efforts to provide a green oasis to patients in our garden, who profit from this calming space tremendously.

The water system has been in place since 2017 and needs regular maintenance. After six years, it is time to renew the active carbon, add water plants and remove slugs that settled over the past years. We also need to install UV equipment that will further reduce the number of bacteria so that we can give water to animals and combat bad odours emitted when irrigating the plants and trees. For these measures, we need $10,000.

 Your donation will help us to keep the garden as green and lively as it is.

“Children are our future” is an often-heard slogan used to indicate that children are the focus of an effort, that their protection and development are essential for the development of societies, and that we all care about them and their interests. From January 2020 through December 2021, Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights researched the situation of former ISIS “Children Associated with Armed Forces and Armed Groups”. These children were forced to witness and be actively part in armed conflict and gross human rights violations.

The study can be found here

“…the children were exactly that at the time: children. They are not to be seen independently of the political situation they have been living in but as vulnerable minors who can easily be seduced – especially at the beginning of adolescence, when peers and other surroundings become more important than parents as part of the natural separation and individuation process that is initiated at this point in their development.”

Korinna Fritzemeyer, PhD, Co-Chair at Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights

The findings from this study pushed Jiyan Foundation to develop a new multi-layered strategy designed to find entry points where our staff can begin to identify cases in need of necessary mental health support to do our so much needed work and help our patients.

 Jiyan Foundation now has invented two buses, one IT Bus and a Toy Bus, that travel across the Nineveh Plains between Sharia camp, Khanke camp, Mamrashan camp, Shekhan camp, and Essan camp. With these buses Jiyan staff provide capacity-building opportunities for participants to learn vital IT skills and engage in other capacity-building activities. These activities act as entry points that assist Jiyan Foundation’s psychotherapists in identifying youth who are in need of mental health interventions. Learn more about this project in Nineveh Plains.

https://youtu.be/afJoCqGCY3I?si=x5kVRRzva52Dfx_R

Concerns about the non-renewal of UNITAD’s mandate in Iraq

We have been made aware of highly concerning news that the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL’s (UNITAD) mandate may not be renewed in Iraq beyond September 2024.

“Terminating UNITAD´s mandate in Iraq will have far-reaching negative consequences, as it will prevent putting the collected evidence of ISIL crimes against Yazidis, Shia, Sunni, Christian, Kaka’i, Shabak and Turkmen Shia and others to proper use. Clearly, every mandate comes to an end, but without a sound legislative framework and a clear roadmap on how to ensure delivery of justice in a survivor-centred manner and in line with international fair trial standards, the entire engagement would have been in vain.”

Dr. Bojan Gavrilovic, Head of Program for Rights and Justice

We, with more than 42 organizations signed a letter, calling upon Iraq, the UN Security Council, and the international community to:

• Renew UNITAD’s mandate beyond September 2024 and as long as it is needed.
• Prepare a strategy to prosecute ISIL crimes holistically both in Iraq and other jurisdictions.
• Support Iraq in adopting a legal framework to prosecute core international crimes and to establish a survivor-centered mechanism which would allow for such prosecutions.
• Ensure that UNITAD supports Iraq in the prosecution of ISIL crimes in Iraq until Iraq is able to follow fair trial rights and implement a survivor-centered mechanism.

See the full statement here: Concerns about the non-renewal of UNITAD’s mandate in Iraq - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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• After all, they were only children... (PDF)