The Lotus Flower provides ad hoc support to survivors of genocide inside and outside of Kurdistan. The programming can include awareness training sessions, such as legal issues and women’s rights, as well as professional psychological support. The Survivor Support program creates custom responses to individual cases based on the situation.
Our Child Protection project is in partnership with UNHCR sees us working to protect vulnerable children from violence, abuse, exploitation and discrimination, while providing them with access to necessary support services, and enhancing their social and emotional wellbeing.
Activities include games and sports, art, music and singing, as well as non-formal educational classes in English language.
Supported by the German Federal Foreign Office in Erbil, Earth Sisters aims to upskill and increase the capacity of women and girls in Duhok on climate change and its links to gender-based violence.
The project is part of our core Climate Change pillar, which we launched earlier this year, and has seen 50 Earth Sisters trained in order to highlight gender injustices, women’s rights, and crucially, the vital role women and girls can play in climate change response.
Our School Garden at Domiz 2 camp is a unique environmental stewardship scheme, designed to equip 80 children and young people with the skills they need to play a role in changing behaviours and attitudes towards climate change in their communities.
With a varied and diverse botanical zone, the garden has more than 1,200 plants, ranging from ornamental trees to flowers, cacti and fruit trees, and the youths are learning how to grow and nurture plants and vegetables themselves, while receiving educational classes about our precious environment.
As the very first project to sit under our Climate Change pillar, we launched ‘She Leads in Food Security’ in early 2023 to enhance the food security and economic status of IDPs, refugees and returnees in Sinjar district.
The project focuses on climate-smart agriculture and income-generating initiatives, as well as large-scale awareness around issues relating to nutrition, food wastage, food preservation and environmental issues.
After launching on International Women’s Day in 2023, Jam Sisters is an initiative that is supporting a small group of female Syrian refugees so they can become financially independent by making jams from local fruits and ingredients.
As an extension of our existing ‘Sisters’ programming, Jam Sisters is a viable food income generation opportunity, while also improving awareness of climate adaptation.
Our teams have been busy providing awareness on the need to care for and protect our communities, and on Kurdistan Environment Day in April 2023, we planted around 500 fig and blueberry trees to benefit families in Essyan camp, as well as 40 Robinia and Cypress trees in public spaces.
Our Boxing Sisters project was originally set up with the help of Cathy Brown, a retired professional British boxer and certified Cognitive Behaviour Therapist. Inspired by Cathy, the boxing and self-defence taught by our trainers teaches girls about strategy and focus, relieves stress and increases their confidence as well as physical strength. By learning self-defence techniques, women and girls feel more secure knowing that they can protect themselves.
As one of our newest projects, Peace Sisters provides women and girls with training so that they can lead peace processes and take a more active role in rebuilding their fractured communities. Although there are other projects on the ground that foster peacebuilding and social cohesion, we believe Peace Sisters is one of the first to train women to become mediators, peace defenders and active community leaders.
The Lotus Flower Women’s Business Incubator (WBI) provides a financial foundation and business mentorship for women-led small businesses. In addition, our women’s centre will host educational sessions on gender-based violence and women’s legal rights.
What started as a small project, utilising the talents of a few skilled bakers amongst the women is going to develop into a longer term cafe project, to build a more extensive community space that will help foster relationships, confidence and community spirit.
