Winners 2013: International School in Dohuk Google translation
In northern Iraq live for many centuries various communities: Kurds, Christians (Chaldeans, Assyrians, Arameans), Turkmen, Yazidis, Shabak, Armenian, feili Kurds, Mandaeans and Jews until the 1960s. The Kurds fought in 1961-1970 civil war, rebellions for their self-determination. In response, destroying the Iraqi central government thousands of villages.
In 1970, the majority Kurdish populated northern Iraq was awarded the partial autonomy. The Anfal operation - code name for a completed 1988-1989 genocide campaign of the Iraqi Baath regime under Saddam Hussein - fell to UN estimates, about 180,000 Kurds victim. Victims of the ongoing violence in the region was the entire population. Those who managed to seek refuge abroad. Many Christians fled to the south of the country, to Baghdad and Basra. After the second Gulf War in 1991, gained the Kurdish region a high degree of autonomy - with its own constitution, which enshrines freedom of religion and protection of ethnic minorities.
The Chaldean Bishop Rabban Al-Qas was born in 1949 in Al Qomani, a village in the province Amadija. He has witnessed the bombing of his village and the deportations and killings of Kurds themselves. After gaining independence in 1991, he founded a local organization that is heavily involved in the reconstruction of villages and churches in his home region. Rabban Al-Qas is a charismatic yet practical, hands-person. His vision of a peaceful coexistence of ethnic groups and religions: the traditional multi-ethnic and multi-cultural area in Iraqi Kurdistan, it is possible to establish a culture of peace and tolerance in the future major community of children and adolescents. He is convinced practice dialogue, respect and reconciliation of childhood creates a foundation for tolerance and trust:
"We can build many houses, as everywhere here. But for me the most important thing is to build awareness in order to change society - through education. After decades of war and civil war, we can now set community standards for development and peace. "
Rabban Al-Qas begins to build a modern, trend-setting school the following concept: Girls and boys learn together. It applies the principle of the equality of the sexes. The girls are strengthened in their social development and supports to be the fatalistic belief in destiny, with regard to the role of women in society, and can also resolve to persist in later alleged to be men-dominant. The ethnic or religious background of the children and young people does not matter. The cultural roots of each are respected. The separation between politics and religion is important and will be completed in school. Education is a socio-political order, because religion has no place.
Rabban Al-Qas wins the Kurdish government for his idea. In 1999, she gives a suitable plot of the Chaldean Church in Dohuk, the capital of the governorate of Dahuk, near the Turkish border. The city (about 300,000 inhabitants) is secure, prosperous, and there is a university.
2004 opens the International School in Dohuk for the first 75 students / inside its doors. Headmaster's Bishop Rabban Al-Qas. The teacher / inside-college belongs to different ethnic groups and religious communities. The school is coeducational, boys and girls learn together, equal rights and equal opportunities is implemented. Neither the ethnic, religious, or social origin play a role. Five languages are taught: English, French, Arabic, Kurdish and Aramaic. English as the language is the linguistic link between the students. Religious instruction is not issued. That is the task of the respective religious community.
"For religious conflict is with us no place," says the Kurdish teacher Atrushi A. Abdul Wahid, a devout Muslim who is the best of terms with the Christians in the country, compared with an Austrian delegation. "All students take part in the cultural background of the other and invite each other as to a religious festival, they should experience from small to cultural diversity and to grow into a new generation, which overcomes the hatred, "Rabban explains the philosophy of the model school.
Peace education plays an important role in practicing the non-violent communication. The first year (half girls) has finished school in 2011 with the university. Most study in Iraqi Kurdistan, the three graduates in Dortmund, but want after graduation returned to the region to be useful to their community. Meanwhile, the school teaches about 300 students. The International School in Dohuk is one of the best and most modern Kurdistan in northern Iraq and the young generation assumes a "leading role" in terms of peace.
"The youth is the future of Kurdistan. What they learn here in school, they will carry into society, "said the Bishop Rabban Al-Qas.
According to research by Carmen Eckhardt who made a film about Christians in northern Iraq and the school, the International School in Dohuk is the only one in the entire Middle East, the peace education reacted so consistently. Especially the children and youth of this school that have witnessed or experienced violence first hand, learn here everyday experience that friendship, laughter, learning, and peace go together.
This school is exemplary. It needs international recognition and backing for a secure existence. Because of the peace in the region is vulnerable. The political situation in the Middle East is still threatening. The level of security is much higher than in the disputed provinces of Mosul and Kirkuk and in the rest of Iraq in Kurdistan Northern Iraq. But even there the missing minorities still feeling lasting physical and economic security. The emerging Kurdistan has created good conditions for a stable democracy and respect of human rights.
The award of the International School of Dohuk with the Aachen Peace Prize 2013 has also signaling effect in the country itself, the school is a model project for peace, reconciliation and understanding between ethnic and religious communities.
http://www.aachener-friedenspreis.de/pr ... -2013.html
Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 1:50 pm
