Rebuilding lives - Yzidis in Iraq

Berivan was 14 years old when an uncle came running into her family’s home crying, ‘we must run, Daash (ISIS) is coming!’.

So they ran up on Sinjar mountain where she and her family stayed for 10 days in temperatures that exceeded 110 F with little water and food.  She watched helpless by as many died, mostly infants and elderly.  All the Yazidi fled or were captured and killed or made slaves of ISIS

After select airstrikes the Kurdish forces opened a way off the mountain and they fled to Kurdistan where we are helping her family today.

Berivan deeply misses the friends who have gone missing, died, or moved somewhere else.  Her mother suffered a heart attack during this time and is in poor health.  She cried when she talked of wanting to go back to her beautiful homeland, school, and friends.

Even with these hardships Berivan has regained hope.  As we came alongside her community as helpers and friends, we brought basic lifesaving aid of food, shelter and medicine.  As their trust grew we began to befriend them and counsel them through some of the trauma.  Berivan and others have begun to have hope, hope they will live, hope they will return home, hope in their future.  She now talks of getting back to school and becoming a doctor so she can help suffering people like her mother.

We have helped these families since they arrived over 2 years ago.  A uniqueness of GHNI is the families we help have grown to trust us.  They know we will walk with them thru this painful and dangerous time as long as it takes.  This greatly improves our ability to help.

We are in this for the long haul, but we need friends like you to help us hang in there.

If you would like to be a part of this relief work please go to www.ghni.org and donate.

Links:

• read more about our work with Yazidi people

• Berivan helps with younger children (PDF)