The Litworld Girls Club in Erbil, Iraq, also known as the Venus Girls Club, explore sisterhood, and take action to protect women's issues in their latest Girls Club meeting in the month of January.
The Girls Club Iraq facilitator, Saadia Hassoon, offered this recollection of their most recent meetings:
We started our lecture with welcoming phrases and definitions of sisterhood that we shared with the girls. They each shared their thoughts, ideas, and stories .
Then we started to ask each girl to define herself and give us one adjective that described her best. We asked the girls to make a circle, and to share their names and the adjective they chose. We repeated this until each girl had a turn, and this refreshed them!
This session we had guest from Bagdad: Ghaydaa F.Hasson. She came to attend this club’s meeting, and to share her ideas about the definition of gender. The girls discussed this issue in detail with Ghaydaa.
For the second session in January, a Kurdistan parliament member came in as a special guest. She was a member of the environmental and health committee, and lived in Denmark for 20 years. As a guest, she heard about the girls activities regarding environment.
She started to talk about her experiences, and how the people in Denmark protect their environment. She also talked about Kurdistan parliament, and how the budget allocated for the environment. She then explained how the decisions were made. She asked the girls if they had any questions about about health and environment, and the girls spent 2 engaging hours talking with her! She promised to let more parliament members come to meet them.
One of the most important questions that the girls raised is the loss of the breast cancer center, and the awareness about early detection of breast cancer. The girls started to collect signatures from beneficiaries, and they will give it to parliament through their visit next week.
The girls felt so happy to meet her, and they felt very empowered with the ability to take action!
