When Ranna Salem prepared for her wedding last December, she balked at the $25,000 price tag for floral arrangements.
Instead, she and her fiancé, Chris Salem, opted to skip traditional decor and placed cards around the venue explaining that the money would be used for something more meaningful.
That decision has since funded a computer lab and library in Alqosh, Iraq. The space, opened to the public on April 7, is part of a broader initiative to ease the educational and financial burdens faced by the town’s estimated 500 students.
Located about 25 miles north of Mosul, the Hammurabi Cultural Center is divided into four parts: Ashtar Hall, designed for lectures; the Nineveh Treasures Workshop for artisans; the Ashurbanipal Library and Computer Lab, a media center equipped with four high-powered computers for engineering students; and the Khoyada Souvenir Shop, which sells items ranging from miniature Lamassu statues to engraved wallets.
Funding for the library and computer lab was provided by Nineveh Rising and a group of donors, while the Without Borders Organization supported the souvenir shop. The workshop and hall remain under construction and are still seeking donations. The center is managed by Khoyada — the ChaldoAssyrian Students and Youth Union.
“Students from Alqosh study either in Dohuk or Mosul, that’s far from us,” said Athra Kado, an Alqosh resident, Khoyada member and the project’s manager. “When they want to study, they either have to buy many books that they may need just one or two times, each costing $50 to $100, or they have to stay after school. We brought that to them in Alqosh so they don’t have to go to Mosul.”
“I’ve never seen something near us like this,” Kado added. “In many big Iraqi cities, this doesn’t exist.”
This project is the first undertaken by Nineveh Rising, the charitable organization Ranna and Chris founded last year to support economic development in their ancestral homeland.
“When we started working in Iraq, it was when ISIS happened and it was all about survival at that point,” Ranna said. “A couple of years after that, when people started going back to their villages and towns, it was about reconstruction. Now that things are relatively stable, we need people to be able to help themselves. We need self-sufficiency, independence, and prosperity. The biggest struggle that people face right now is economic opportunities.”
Alqosh is a town just north of Mosul. By tradition, it’s comprised exclusively of Assyrians — a practice maintained through an informal agreement among residents not to sell land to non-Alqoshians.
Many residents fled after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, citing instability in Mosul and surrounding cities. Fear intensified in 2014 when the Islamic State invaded the Nineveh Plains, and the unease persists today.
An estimated 4,000 to 5,000 Assyrians currently live in Alqosh. Residents continue to leave in waves, seeking better job prospects in larger cities or abroad. Local leaders hope projects like the cultural center will encourage young people to remain.
“Every cultural identity can only be protected and survive in its own land,” Kado said. “When our people, especially the youth, are leaving, I’m worried about losing our identity. Becoming the minority in our land results in losing the land itself, and if the situation continues, we won’t be existing in a few generations unless things change.”
