Jiyan Foundation Podcast

How do refugees and asylum seekers obtain food, money or shelter? What’s it like rebuilding a life in the United States?

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Havin, a former refugee and asylum seeker who survived the Anfal Genocide. The Anfal campaign was an operation carried out by Saddam Hussein’s Ba'athist Iraq in 1988 at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign targeted primarily rural Kurds with the purpose of eliminating Kurdish rebel groups to Arabize the region.

Havin is accompanied by her daughter Wan Rashid, who translates on her behalf. Wan you may know from our previous episode is Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Effendi Foundation. The two of them currently reside with their family in Nashville Tennessee. This episode accompanies our previous episode and is the first part of that conversation. If you haven’t, I encourage everyone to listen to that interview “Grit, will, and representing diversity with Wan Rashid from Effendi Foundation”.

Because of the language barrier, this episode is edited to a greater extent than previous episodes. This is Havin’s story.

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Wan Rashid is among the first Iraqi-Kurdish children born in Guam. Her family, who lived originally in northern Iraq, sought asylum in the United States after experiencing years of violence and persecution in Iraq. Today, Wan is Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Effendi Foundation, a Tennessee-based non-profit that seeks to uphold and educate Kurdish-Americans about their civil rights.

In our conversation, Wan talks briefly about the culture that shaped her, her civil-society work, and she shares her thoughts on how to work with people who hold vastly different viewpoints.

This is the second part of a larger discussion. I Tarantino'd it a bit on this one, so keep an ear out for part one - later.

Learn more about Effendi Foundation: https://www.effendifoundation.org

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Does the Earth's changing climate fill you with feelings of anxiety, stress, fear, and overwhelming emotions? In this episode, we speak with friends of Jiyan Foundation, Sarah Newman and Cindy Pace from Climate Mental Health Network (CMHN), on the impact climate change has on the mental health of adults and young people from around the world. In their latest short film, young activists, including a member of Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights' Youth Network for Peace and Dialogue, express their growing concern for the environment and discuss how it impacts their decisions about the future.

CMHN recognizes climate change and mental health as intersectional issues that are inseparable from environmental justice, women's rights, disability justice, indigenous justice, decolonization, and anti-oppression efforts underway across the world.

Sarah Newman founded the Climate Mental Health Network in the spring of 2021, after her own struggles with climate anxiety and other emotions. She has worked for many years in the film-social impact space. Previously Ms. Newman was the first Outreach Director at California Interfaith Power and Light and worked as a community organizer.

Cindy Pace is a Climate Communicator & Storyteller with Climate Mental Health Network. She also serves on CMHN's Gen Z Advisory Board. Cindy works to increase awareness about the mental health consequences of climate change through education and community engagement.

On March 8 2021, International Women’s Day, President Barham Salih ratified the Yazidi Female Survivors Law, law enacted in the Iraqi Council of Representatives. This groundbreaking law mandates several critical reparations for survivors of ISIL crimes from Yazidi, Christian Turkmen and Shabak communities.

The Yazidi Survivors Law referred to as the YSL, includes compensation, rehabilitation, land, housing, continued education, employment, recognition of the genocide, criminal prosecutions of perpetrators, the search for those who remain missing, protection of witnesses and survivors and the establishment of a national day of remembrance on August 3. Two years before the Yazidi Female Survivors Law was passed, on March 28 2019, President Barham Salih´s office submitted a Yazidi Female Survivors bill to the Iraqi parliament for review and approval. This initial bill was of great importance in two ways.

First, it was already quite advanced and included various reparative measures. And second, it managed to mobilize a wide movement, including the involvement of Iraqi civil society and survivors, to push for modifications in passing this draft law in the Iraqi parliament.

Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights hosted the following conversation on behalf of the Coalition for Just Reparations (C4JR).

In this episode, we provide some context to the U.S.-Kurdish relationship, exploring the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East and its impact on Jiyan Foundation’s mission to provide mental health treatment and humanitarian assistance to people in the region.

Our guest, Ozum Yesiltas, received her Ph.D. in International Relations from Florida International University in 2014. She also holds a B.A. in Sociology and an M.S. in International Relations from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Her dissertation titled “Rethinking the National Question: Anti-Statist Discourses within the Kurdish National Movement” is a comparative study of the impact of the Kurdish movement on the internal policy debates on human rights and democratization in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Dr. Yesiltas joined the faculty at Texas A&M University-Commerce in 2017, where she teaches International Relations and Comparative Politics courses with a regional focus on the Middle East.

Dr. Yesiltas’ research interests involve ethnic conflict and democratization in the Middle East, particularly focusing on the Kurdish Question. Her recent work focuses on the Syrian Refugee Crisis and the Feminist Revolution in Syrian Kurdistan. She is currently working on a project investigating the U.S. Foreign Policy toward the Kurds in post-ISIS Iraq and Syria funded by the American Political Science Association.

Her most recent book Rethinking State-Non-State Alliances: Change and Continuity in the U.S.-Kurdish Relationship, explores the growing influence of Middle Eastern non-state actors as agents of foreign policy through an analysis of the U.S.-Kurdish relationship.

The views and opinions expressed in this interview do not reflect those of Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights.

Kurdistan-Iraq is a diverse place, rich with different cultures and religions that are too often isolated from one another. In this episode, we talk with Larsa Imad, a coordinator working with Jiyan Foundation's Youth Network for Peace and Dialogue. We are also accompanied by two program participants, Arez and Banu. Despite growing up relatively close geographically, each person was raised in a different religious group and without exposure to people outside of their faith.

The group shares their thoughts on their first time being exposed to people from other religions, media bias, how they develop projects with the Youth Network, and what it's like to communicate with a multilingual team. 

Established in November 2018, the Youth Network for Peace and Dialogue provides young activists in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq with practical support to develop civil society projects which promote coexistence and cooperation in the region. Each year the Youth Network hosts equally female and male participants from diverse ethnic and religious groups to carry out civil society initiatives, workshops, and community events.

This one is a lot of fun. We hope our discussion gives listeners more perspective on the attitudes and activism of youth in Kurdistan-Iraq.

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Originally from the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, Deeman Pirdawood started her career working for the United Nations (UN) at UNDP and UNHCR agencies supporting immigration and refugee programs. She also worked as a coordinator between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the United Nations in Northern Iraq.

Ms. Pirdawood has lived in the Virginia area for the past 15 years and has worked with the Fairfax County Government, Department of Family Services (DFS). She is currently a Benefit Programs Supervisor with the Loudoun County Government. Before her work in public service in the United States, Ms. Pirdawood had the privilege of working in the private sector with COMCYS, L3, McNeil Technologies, and DynCorp International.

In addition to her work in the private sector and public services, Ms. Pirdawood is a Language Specialist Contractor with the US Department of State. She is a co-founder and board member of the nonprofit Women Rehabilitation Organization (WRO) as well as a co-founder and board member at the Kurdish Community in the Greater Washington DC (KCDC).

She is married and a proud mother of two amazing daughters.

In this discussion we talk about lessons she learned in public service, her experience migrating to the United States, and recount her own life growing up in northern Iraq. This episode covers a lot of ground and is well worth a listen.

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Originally from Duhok, Kurdistan-Iraq, Zaid Brifkani has lived in the United States since 1996 and currently resides in the Nashville area. A physician with board certification in Internal Medicine, Nephrology, and an additional subspecialty in Kidney and Pancreas transplant, Dr. Brifkani practices as a Transplant Nephrologist in Cookeville, TN, and manages several outpatient dialysis clinics as a medical director.

In addition to medicine, Dr. Brifkani has a strong passion for writing and has released his first novel The Mountains We Carry, a story of a Kurdish family's struggle to escape persecution in Iraq.

Dr. Brifkani also enjoys working with youth and students through Kurdish Professionals, a non-profit organization based in Tennessee.

In his off-time, he enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids.

In our conversation we discuss his life growing up in Duhok, and his inspiration for writing his novel. 

Stigma and a lack of access to mental health treatment is a global issue of special significance in Iraq and Syria, where decades of violence have caused mass displacement, loss of life, and trauma for people living there.

Chenar Seerwan, Co-Head of Trauma Care & Health at Jiyan Foundation is a practicing Psychotherapist and co-manages Jiyan Foundation's clinical program, supporting thousands of psychotherapy patients annually. In this discussion, we discuss why mental health treatment is so important, how to combat stigma and Jiyan Foundation’s holistic approach to providing services in the region.