At the Bakery Training Center Yezidi women each year learn the basic skills of working in a bakery, while earning a basic wage. In addition, trainees receive basic business and mathematics classes to boost their skill sets and aid in their employment searches in the future. Regardless of the industry in which they choose to work, each trainee leaves the Bakery Training Center with the experience and confidence to participate as empowered economic actors. FYF seeks funding to support this effort.
Before ISIS started a genocidal campaign in August 2014 against the Yezidis in Iraq, there were already serious, multi-faceted problems facing Yezidis, discrimination, ignorance, and hatred against Yezidis was not uncommon. A international NGO had established a bakery in the town for displaced Yezidis but hired non-Yezidis as managers. Those managers refused to eat any food made by Yezidi hands.This is sadly a common incident of racism against Yezidis.
FYF directors at that time made a pledge to try to open a Yezidi-run bakery, by and for Yezidi women. In 2021, FYF established the Sugar is Sweet bakery as a welcoming place for all those who support an inclusive Iraq. Our bakery instructor is Yezidi, the majority of staff members are Yezidi women, and all trainees are Yezidi women. Any who are not Yezidi, come with respect, dedication, and a spirit of friendship Everyone is happy to enjoy the bakery products and it creates economic empowerment.
Yezidis will not survive in Iraq through subsistence farming; Yezidis must have the chance to join the modern economy. Over the long term FYF will ensure women from the Yezidi community learn new skills and understand business operations. They will always have the skills they learn today. By giving them a chance today to learn and explore, we are giving the next generation a chance to enjoy a better future. This effort supports FYF infrastructure to oversee this project.
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