This morning I woke up and thought about how much I loved daylight. Bleary eyed and sleep deprived from days on the road, I still appreciate the sun streaming through the curtains. I am after all a morning person.
But as we got on the bus and headed towards Lalesh I began to feel the glumness sink in. Soon after leaving the hotel some kids knocked at our windows at trafic lights. They were selling tissues and water and as they called to us I felt my heart sink. I was so sadened by these kids who could be playing instead of working in the hot morning traffick. I have done different campaigns over child labour but in the end what do you expect people to do when they need to feed themselves and their families. I questioned whether my sorrow was actually a luxury I didn't have the right to indulge. For I wasn't buying the things they were offering and I wasn't setting up altenatives.
So in the afternoon when we met the young Azidi who has started an awesome volunteer run organisation it felt like a reminder from God. This is your job at the moment, being a witness and hearing peoples stories. This amazing NGO is called Sunrise (they are on facebook, look them up). They were started by a group of friends in a camp for Azidi IDP's in Duhok province who saw the child labor around them in the camps and decided to find a way to do something about it. Nayf, the group's founder, said that they see child labor as a sort of violence, an abuse. They wanted to give these kids back their childhood. They couldn't stop parents from making children work so they began providing alternative activities.
The group now has about 20 volunteers and they are working with young people from ages 6 to 18. The volunteers themselves are only 19-25 years old.
Lalesh is a beautiful ancient place, the most holy place of the Azidi, who say it is the birthplace of all creation. There are ancient doorways and trees and everyone must take their shoes off to walk around the streets and temple. The young people from Sunrise were very proud to be showing us around. A gazzillion children and others adults joined in the tour for bits and pieces, asking to take photos of these strangers.
However it just made me so happy when I heard about the work Sunrise does and all the beauty and holiness of Lalesh paled in comparison. Those young people are amazing, volunteering their time in camps to run art, music, English and physical education classes for children who have survived ISIS. They talked about the rage and violence some of those children have wrapped up in them and how they need therapy because children are like blank slates, and all these ones have has written on them is terror and violence. They are not trained in anything special ..... but they see a need and they are doing what they can with limited funds and experience.
But as we got on the bus and headed towards Lalesh I began to feel the glumness sink in. Soon after leaving the hotel some kids knocked at our windows at trafic lights. They were selling tissues and water and as they called to us I felt my heart sink. I was so sadened by these kids who could be playing instead of working in the hot morning traffick. I have done different campaigns over child labour but in the end what do you expect people to do when they need to feed themselves and their families. I questioned whether my sorrow was actually a luxury I didn't have the right to indulge. For I wasn't buying the things they were offering and I wasn't setting up altenatives.
So in the afternoon when we met the young Azidi who has started an awesome volunteer run organisation it felt like a reminder from God. This is your job at the moment, being a witness and hearing peoples stories. This amazing NGO is called Sunrise (they are on facebook, look them up). They were started by a group of friends in a camp for Azidi IDP's in Duhok province who saw the child labor around them in the camps and decided to find a way to do something about it. Nayf, the group's founder, said that they see child labor as a sort of violence, an abuse. They wanted to give these kids back their childhood. They couldn't stop parents from making children work so they began providing alternative activities.
The group now has about 20 volunteers and they are working with young people from ages 6 to 18. The volunteers themselves are only 19-25 years old.
Lalesh is a beautiful ancient place, the most holy place of the Azidi, who say it is the birthplace of all creation. There are ancient doorways and trees and everyone must take their shoes off to walk around the streets and temple. The young people from Sunrise were very proud to be showing us around. A gazzillion children and others adults joined in the tour for bits and pieces, asking to take photos of these strangers.
However it just made me so happy when I heard about the work Sunrise does and all the beauty and holiness of Lalesh paled in comparison. Those young people are amazing, volunteering their time in camps to run art, music, English and physical education classes for children who have survived ISIS. They talked about the rage and violence some of those children have wrapped up in them and how they need therapy because children are like blank slates, and all these ones have has written on them is terror and violence. They are not trained in anything special ..... but they see a need and they are doing what they can with limited funds and experience.