CPTnet
21 November 2013
IRAQI KURDISTAN: Participants in nonviolence workshops say, “We want to learn
more.”
In the spring and summer months of
2013, CPT’s Iraqi Kurdistan (IK) team conducted twelve workshops about the
fundamental ideas and practices of
nonviolence for students and people in other
sectors of Iraqi Kurdish society. In
cooperation with the Suleimani Directorate of Education, the team was able to
present this interactive workshop in five high schools to over 180 female and male
students and teachers.
Later on, the team ran the workshop
in places that included the Culture Café and Café 11 in Suleimani, Amez Center
for Women in Halabja, the town of Qaladze and village of Daraban. At the end of each workshop, the team
asked the participants to share their thoughts and suggestions on evaluation
forms.
CPT IK felt deeply encouraged by the
participants’ feedback and responses. The team compiled the results into a report in order to share
the diverse and earnest thoughts of the participants with the Kurdish Regional Government’s
education sector, as well as civil society organizations. The team hopes the government will also
find the report encouraging and will respond to the requests of the
participants by developing and providing for further workshops and trainings
focused on non-violence.
The ten page report, which
includes graphs and candid photos of workshop participants is available here.
#GIVINGTUESDAY What if CPT had the resources to provide trainings for all the civil society groups in Kurdistan who wanted them: students, teachers, women’s groups, etc ? What if participants in these sessions began training others and multiplying the effects of nonviolence across Kurdistan? Your donation could help our partners in Iraqi Kurdistan do more effective nonviolent organizing against the repression they face. It would be a vote of confidence in their struggles, a way of saying, “What you are doing to publicize cross border bombings from Turkey and Iran, violence against women, the confiscation of land by multinational corporations—it matters to us.”
