Iraq
Note: Due to the harassment of the Iraqi central government, we unfortunately had to stop our work in northern Iraq in June 2018!
Reconstruction in the Yazidi village of Gerge Hasare (2016–2018)
Since the large-scale exodus of the Yazidis from the Shingal Mountains in August 2014, there has still been a lack of infrastructure to enable the return of all displaced families, despite the expulsion of the Islamic State from the region in the winter of 2015. In the fall of 2016, the Green Helmets therefore began building an elementary school for around 250 pupils in the village of Gerge Hasare. The Yazidi village is located at the northern foot of the Shingal Mountains.
Reconstruction of the village schools in Upper Kani Sherin (2015–2016)
From 2015 to 2016, the Green Helmets rebuilt a school destroyed in the war in the village of Upper Kani Sherin in the north-west of Iraq, in the Zumar district. The new primary and secondary school consists of four building sections with twelve classrooms, a computer room and a laboratory. Around 500 children of Arab and Kurdish origin can study together at the school.
Support for refugees in northern Iraq (2014–2015)
In August 2014, more than 500,000 Yazidis fled from the Islamic State from the Shingal Mountains to the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in northern Iraq. In the first few months after fleeing, many people initially sought “shelter” in parks, schools, unfinished buildings or simply in open spaces. Between 2014 and 2015, the Green Helmets were active in the region around Zahko and Dohuk near the Turkish border, where they mainly built sanitary facilities and fixed tents for the winter in order to improve the local hygiene situation.
Schools and houses after the war (2003)
Just one week after the declared end of the second Iraq war in May 2003, the Green Helmets began rebuilding the civilian infrastructure near Baghdad. First, a school was built for more than 2,000 children in the “Shishan” slum district. The Green Helmets then worked with the local population in the northern Iraqi village of Zurna to build over 70 houses and two further schools – one for the Kurdish population and one for the Arab population.