A story of loss, endurance and restoring life
Nine years after the start of the conflict in 2014 in Iraq, Wijdan remembers painfully the day she lost her husband in the conflict. On that day her area was seized by armed groups. Combatants instructed Wijdan and her community to leave their homes to save their lives. One of their young family members got hit and was killed immediately. They feared for their children so they fled their homes with their children leaving everything behind.
In the street, armed men told the men and women to separate. Wijdan’s family tried to convince them to allow the men to accompany them since they were also carrying the children, but they denied their request. The men were separated from the women and the children. Wijdan and her children with the rest of her family were transferred to a camp. Shortly afterwards, elderly men and the boys were also returned to the camp, and they were reunited. But Wijdan heard nothing about her husband and the rest of the men of her community.
Wijdan lost six members of her in-law’s family and her husband went missing. “We asked a lot about our men, but we don’t know where they are. Nobody knows.” Said Wijdan.
Wijdan stayed for five months in the camp. The camps were overpopulated and cramped with families living on top of one another with barely any basic services. She shared a tent with her children, her brother’s family of nine shared a tent and her in-laws of 15 members shared a tent. Wijdan recalls, “There were no beds. We could barely find water in the mornings. Our children were very young then. My father died in the camp as he was heartbroken for my brother’s sons who were killed in the conflict. In his family 55 male members were killed.”
Losing everything, beginning again
After spending five months in the camp, Wijdan returned to her village to find that everything they had was looted, destroyed and there was nothing left for them but desolation. There was nothing to sustain their lives. So they moved to Saqlawiyah.
The Red Cross gave money to the family to buy cows. “Our situation was very bad then. We couldn’t plant, there was no water and nothing. Thank God, they gave us a cow and we started to build our lives slowly. The organisations were helpful to us. Our lives improved from year to year.”
Wijdan continued to live with her children and female in-laws, rebuilding their lives together. They are nine members living together helping one another. Alongside caring for the cow, she started to sell crops. She slowly began to harvest and started to sell barley, wheat, and dates.
Recent participation in an Economic Resilience
Earlier this year, World Vision Iraq launched its project, Supporting a Resilient Economic Recovery by Strengthening the Agriculture Sector in Saqlawiyah, and Wijdan was selected to participate in a 40-day programme to help her learn about modern agricultural methods and practices. Wijdan would start the course from eight in the morning until midday. Wijdan shared, “Every ten days they give us a sum of money and we spend it on our children’s needs. They helped us a lot during this time. Suhaib, Marwa and Anas from World Vision Iraq helped me a lot. Many organisations came and we registered but we wouldn’t end up being selected for the programme, but this time I was selected. I felt happy when I was selected because they would help us.”
Wajdan tells us that her husband used to help her a lot with agricultural work and also with her children, but that now it was all on her shoulder these great responsibilities. “After I lost my husband, I learned to take greater responsibility. We don’t have any salary and we borrow from people. It is a very difficult situation, but we have been patient.”
This programme not only helped Wijdan financially, but also emotionally. She started to get out of her home, meet other women and get to know new people. Wijdan started to form relationships, confiding in them about her suffering and challenges but also her happy moments. She has found a support network.
Such support networks are critical for women because it helps them share life experiences and feelings, and to advise one another. It helps them to learn about the wider world beyond the homes to which many have been confined, and to learn that there are other women who go through the same things. In the future, Wijdan looks forward to planting vegetables, okra, eggplants, barley and wheat. “They taught us about seasonal farming, and I look forward to buying the water sprinklers to save water and install a drip water irrigation system to improve farming.” Said Wijdan.
A look back at her earlier days
Wijdan today is 40 years of age, and a widowed mother of five. As a child, she grew up in a modest house in the outskirts of Saqlawiyah sharing her home with her parents and two siblings. “We had a nice life”, said Wijdan.
Her parents were farmers and they had agricultural lands. When she graduated from sixth year of primary school, she started to help her mother with farming and house chores. They were planting wheat, barley, tomato, okra and other crops. She also helped care for the animals on the farm. She remembered her first time planting – it was okra – and she was just fourteen years of age. “I was very happy with the work I did. My parents were proud that I helped them.”
Wijdan left school when she graduated from sixth year of primary school. “We were in the outskirts (rural areas) of Saqlawiyah. The school was in Salqawiyah and it was far. The girls usually wouldn’t continue their schooling beyond sixth grade. I loved school, and my favorite subject was Arabic language and Islamic sessions. I felt better at school. It was better than sitting at home.”
However, Wijdan had to leave school due to distance and the fact that most girls in her neighborhood were dropping out of school at that stage. At the beginning it was rather difficult for her, but gradually she became accustomed to the fact and got busy helping her mother around the house and in the farm and assisting her younger sister with her studies. At eighteen, she got married to her cousin and moved to live in her in-laws’ family house. They were twelve members living together.
“I had children. I started to carry responsibilities. I would help raise my children, do house chores and farm. I would bake bread, care for the cows but I would get help from the rest of the family members as well. My husband was a farmer then. My financial situation became better after I got married.” Life went smoothly for her until the conflict of 2014 started.
Reflections for the future and Wijdan’s messages
“After the loss of my husband, I learned that we must act to save our children. Whenever a conflict starts, we must act quickly to save our lives. The proudest moment in life is when I realised I have raised my children in a good way and built a good reputation. My dream is to raise my children and help them grow older and make one feel proud. My message to women is to be patient. I must rely on myself before extending my hand for help from other people. We learned a lot of things in life. When I lost my husband, I learned to take responsibility and be strong to help my children and continue living.”
Through this project, Supporting a Resilient Economic Recovery by Strengthening the Agriculture Sector in Saqlawiyah District, implemented in partnership with UNDP Iraq and with funding from BMZ and KFW, we aim to empower, and enhance the capacities of, seventy-eight women and seventy-two men farmers by training them in Climate Smart Agricultural Modules through a forty-day intensive programme. Through this programme, we also aim at empowering and supporting single women and mothers like Wijdan to be able to sustain livelihoods through farming and agriculture.