Tuesday 19 November 2013

Trip to Kurdistan

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.