Some of the Upbeat Communities team recently took a trip to Kurdistan to
visit friends and make further links with the community there.
Upbeat Communities has been working with the Kurdish community in Derby
for a number of years, with many women participating in our sewing classes. We
have recently helped to set up a Kurdish Saturday school for children to learn
how to write in Kurdish.
We were overwhelmed by the welcome we received and hospitality shown to
us by those we visited. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery and wonderful food and
learnt much about the history of the area.
Some of the highlights of the trip
were…
tasting the wonderful food and trying out the local dress,
meeting lots of interesting people and making great friends,
visiting a refugee camp where we were excited to find a sewing project
similar to the one we run in Derby and visiting the Halabja memorial where we learnt about the atrocities
inflicted on the Kurdish residents and met some survivors.
We were glad to share our experiences with our friends back in Derby and look forward to developing our links with this community in Derby and Kurdistan.