Women from Afrin strengthen their organization

Young women from Afrin do educational work in the northern Syrian canton of Shehba to get to know themselves, discover their own strength and increase resistance against the Turkish occupation regime.

Young women from Afrin, who had to flee their homeland because of the Turkish invasion in spring 2018 and who moved to Shehba, are pushing ahead with their self-organization. In this context, a group of 17 women started an education circle in early June. The participants spent two weeks in further training.

One of the participants is Hêva Haşim. She told ANF how everyday life is organised during the training. Besides the lessons, sports and common activities are also on the programme. In addition, the supply of food and keeping the premises clean is organised collectively. The central topics of the lessons are the examination of the own history, the natural society and the reality of women.

Hêva Haşim drew attention to the difficult conditions the participants have to deal with as refugees after their land has been occupied. However, she stressed that this circumstance cannot stop the young women in particular. Instead, opportunities are always being established to enable them to develop further. One could see in the face of each participant "love and affection for the knowledge imparted". To search for the right life is a task for everyone, says Hêva Haşim.

Another participant in the education circle, Zelîzan Osman, also made a short statement and stressed that it was an autonomous women's education: "We need autonomous women's courses so that each individual woman can better understand her own reality and see that she can be independent. I myself took part in the education in order to strengthen and intensify my own way of thinking and my philosophy of life."