‘This is not the end of life’

Internally displaced young woman reaches out to others

August 23, 2016 | Web First
Marla Pierson Lester | Mennonite Central Committee

By the time Feryal arrived at a camp for displaced people in Iraq’s northern Ninewa Governorate, she had little desire to leave the security of the tent she shared with her parents and sister. And for the first four months, she mostly stayed put.

“I didn’t like to talk to anyone, just be silent,” recalls the 22-year-old, whose last name is not used for security reasons.

The months before had been harrowing. Fleeing the Islamic State group, which killed her uncle, she and her family were among the thousands trapped on Sinjar Mountain without shelter two summers ago.

Her father Elyas, who has only one leg, weeps when asked about the ordeal. He walked on crutches for hours but could go no farther than the mountain. He stayed there as his family made the journey to safety via Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Elyas was one of the lucky few who were airlifted to safety, but his hands bled from using his crutches to reach the peak of the mountain with the last of his strength, and he needed hospital care in order to recover from his exhaustion.

This story that cast such a shadow over Feryal’s life is part of what she brings to other displaced families. Through a project of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and Iraqi partner Azidi Solidarity and Fraternity League, Feryal and other young volunteers are being trained and empowered to meet with displaced people to share and document stories of both trauma and resilience.

Feryal’s story involved wanting to go to college, but by the time she graduated from high school, extremist groups had enough power that it wasn’t considered safe to send girls to Mosul to study. Instead, she remained at home, and her schedule was soon dominated by the routine of work. “I didn’t have enough time to support anyone in need,” she remembered.

Now, even as she and her family remain in tents, unable to return home, she is exploring how she can make a difference in the broader community and make the stories of displacement known. “We will listen to all the voices of the families in the camps, and all the world will listen to our voices,” she says.

That means entering into the pain of families. She begins visits by sharing that she, too, fled home, surviving on the mountain with little food or water. Then she listens as they open up about the horrors they’ve seen: Islamic State killing family members, children dying due to the harsh conditions as families fled and the girls who were taken and not heard from again. She has talked with girls who were kidnapped by Islamic State, witnessing executions and suffering horrors of rape and abuse before escaping.

It’s changed the way she looks at her own situation and the displaced people around her. “I don’t have one family. I have two families. This is my family,” she says, sitting in the tent with her father as her mother and sister come and go. “And the community is my family.”

The 22-year-old, who once didn’t want to leave the security of her tent, is now serving as a team leader with the League, encouraging and training a new set of volunteers as they visit with families from March through September. And as she does, she continues to share the truth she found through her own story of being uprooted: “This is not the end of life.”

“We have to live our lives,” she encourages young people and their families. “We are youth, like 22 years, we have many years. We have to live it and support the people.”

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