At the “Hevy” (english: “hope”) centre for Yazidi orphans and IS survivors, 60 to 70 children have a lot of fun and learn many important things for their lives at the same time.
The center manager Helen reports:
“Our team includes six Yazidi teachers, a computer teacher and a small international team that is currently supporting us for several months. The children have experienced terrible things under IS and are extremely traumatised. In our centre they experience healing. We have art and music classes, also instrumental lessons, English and Arabic lessons and much more. Everything is based on Montessori education.
The children are between six and eleven years old, and for some time now we also have 12- to 15-year-olds with us.
It is especially important to us that these children and young people learn to deal with their feelings – after all the terrible things they have had to go through. We encourage them to express their often painful feelings, for example in skits, artwork, music. In this way, they learn to deal with their feelings in the community with siblings, friends and in other relationships. They learn to experience themselves as unique and as personalities loved by God.
Alicia (name changed) lost her father through IS killers. Like the other children in her group recently, she wrote a letter to God and to the people she lost, attached it to a gas balloon and painted another heart on it. Asked what this stood for, she said it was her father’s heart. She tried to hold back her tears while she told how much she missed him and what a good father he had been to her.
With tears in our eyes, we released the balloons into the sky. ”
The centre finances Shelter Now Germany with 2,300 euros per month. The project number is 8011.
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