We are rebuilding a school in Iraq

We have been building the school in Zomani for several months now. We were forced to overcome many obstacles on the way. But luckily, they are all behind us now and the construction is currently in its final phase.

The walls are already standing, the screeds and the roof are made. Only windows and doors are missing. If there are no more complications and everything goes according to plan, more than a hundred children will hear the first bell at the new school in the new school year.

Why Zomani?

Zomani is located in the Sinjar Mountains close to the border with Syria. Last year, several dozens of families returned to Zomani after they were forced to flee the genocide that was carried out against them in 2014 by ISIS. On their return, the locals found destroyed houses and the school which they built with their own hands several years earlier. It was a small building made of clay consisting of two classrooms and a small teacher’s room.

There are large distances between towns and villages of Sinjar. The terrain is mountains while the roads are in terrible condition (in some places there are no roads at all). The nearest school is located fifteen kilometers away from Zomani. It is too far for the children to go there every day. That’s why we have decided to act and build a new school. It will be bigger and built of hollow bricks. It will consist of five classrooms, a teacher’s room, a storage room for school equipment, and a bathroom that was lacking in the old building.

The school’s project was designed by the local foundation called Shengal Charities Organization which we cooperate with. They’ve prepared the project free of charge as Sinjar is their homeland. The foundation’s volunteers work on the construction site and make sure that everything is made according to the project. They had to overcome several obstacles caused by random events. In the winter, there were several snowstorms, a very rare thing in this region. Later on, the security situation in Sinjar worsened. Many families left the region for some time, but luckily the situation got stabilized. Skyrocketing prices of construction materials, mainly steel and PVC, also affected the works. Nevertheless, we are now in the last construction phase and we are hoping that the school will be ready in August or at the beginning of September (in Iraq, the school year begins in October).

The school in Zomani wouldn’t have been built if we hadn’t received help from you. It’s been partially funded through the means received from the fundraiser that we opened on zrzutka.pl. Massive support also came from the fundraiser carried out by Rafał Otoka Frąckiewicz on his Youtube channel Polityko

The cost of the project is expected to reach around 20,000 euros. It’s more than we planned, but the price hikes (sometimes even by 200-300%) significantly increased the costs. Nevertheless, more than a hundred kids will be able to go to school and that is worth all the money.

Thank you for your support.