After hiking the jagged mountains of Hakkari, once the northern frontier of the ancient Assyrian empire, and visiting Saint George church, which dates back to the early years A.D., young Assyrians were welcomed by village elders in Dooreh with a photo exhibition.
The display, featuring both historical and contemporary images, highlighted a mix of Assyrians fighters on the famed mountain range, religious leaders of the past, and community members who lived through the Assyrian genocide.
The exhibition was just one of several activities during this year’s Etuti Institute Annual Leadership Program (EALP), held March 9-12 near Iraq’s border with Turkey, which offered workshops and volunteer projects for Etuti’s organizational partners.
“We wanted to make an annual event where all of our volunteers can gather, all of our sponsors, all organizations and supporters who work with us,” said Savina Dawood, co-founder of the Etuti Institute. “Then we decided to do it each year in a village of ours that holds a meaning to us and that has a story for us.”
The program kicked off Thursday with a presentation on the importance of volunteering. Afterward, participants divided into two teams: one visited a local church, while the other set to work renovating another church hall. The hall, used for everything from weddings and funerals to large social gatherings, had long struggled with poor lighting, a lack of air conditioning, and limited seating.
“They can use it for anything now,” Dawood said. “The whole village uses it for everything. During the winter it was not very useful and during the summer it wasn’t very useful because it was very hot, but not anymore with the air conditioning we put. They can use it all the time.” The renovations also included new lighting along with additional chairs and tables.
Even when the electricity was cut off each evening, participants continued their work by using flashlights on their phones. A highlight of the second day was a leadership seminar by Dr. Heja Sindi of Erbil, who emphasized the importance of communication skills before leading a wider discussion on youth empowerment.
Planning for the event began in early February, when Etuti sent invitations to partner groups around the world, including in Germany, France, Syria, Lebanon, and the United States. The total cost of the program was about $7,000, covering food and supplies for each participant as well as materials for the renovation projects.
Although next year’s location has not yet been selected, volunteers were asked where they would like the event to be held, and three villages emerged as the top choices. Later this year, one of those will be announced as the 2018 host village.
“The key is to choose a village where there are people,” Dawood said. “We cannot go to a village with only three families, it’s not going to work, it has to be a village where the youth are existing.”
Among the roughly 50 participants who came and went throughout the weekend were about 30 volunteers, along with 10 to 20 villagers who joined each day. Most attendees were between 18 and 25 years old.
The event was free for participants, thanks to a sponsorship from L’Œuvre d’Orient, a French organization focused on education, humanitarian care, and community support, primarily in the Middle East.
For now, the conference is open exclusively to Etuti volunteers, sponsors, and individuals who work directly with the organization — a choice Dawood says is meant to recognize and reward those who are already leaders in their communities.
“We want the serious people to receive it, people who really care,” she said.
The group chose to host the conference near the end of March to coincide with the Kurdish new year because the government provides time off work.
The Etuti Institute, founded in 2013 to support displaced persons through essential aid and educational programs for Assyrian youth, faces a unique challenge in teaching leadership in a place like Iraq.
“Leadership is controlling and dictating, that’s the understanding of leadership in Iraq because the only leader they had for more than 30 years was Saddam Hussein,” she said.
Etuti’s mission now is to bring young people together to build generations of new leaders in the homeland.
“The whole concept of Etuti is generations of leaders,” Dawood said. “We want to generate leaders and we want to push the existing ones or to help and support them. Through this program, we can connect between cities and villages, connect our ideas and connect our thoughts together and understand leadership in general.”
