Rebuilding Trust, Healing Trauma, and Cultivating Hope in Sinjar
Sinjar, A Community Still Healing from Genocide
More than a decade after the 2014 ISIS genocide, Sinjar remains one of the most destroyed and neglected regions in Iraq.
Thousands of displaced families are returning to a landscape of ruined homes, broken infrastructure, and lingering mistrust between ethnic and religious communities. Trauma, lack of basic services, and fragile inter-community relations continue to hinder recovery.
Yet amid the hardship, a remarkable local movement for peace has emerged.
The Vision of the Sinjar Project | Planting Seeds of Peace
Over three years, the Progress in Peace Sinjar Hub will be a community centre of hope and practical support, offering:
• Peace Camps and Mini-Camps – Bringing youth from Yazidi, Sunni, Shia, Christian, and other backgrounds together for dialogue, trust-building, and leadership training rooted in shared values of peace and reconciliation.
• Education and Skills Training – Free courses in English, computer literacy, advocacy, and peacebuilding to equip young people and women (including ISIS survivors) with tools for employment and community leadership.
• Safe Spaces for Women and Children – Trauma-informed programs, leadership opportunities, and psychosocial support in a welcoming environment.
• Sports, Cultural, and Community Events – Football tournaments, tree-planting drives, clean-up campaigns, and intercultural and interfaith gatherings that rebuild relationships through shared activity.
• Community-Led Coexistence Initiatives – Supporting returnees and residents to work side-by-side on projects that restore both the land and social bonds.
Key Objectives / Potential Fruit
1. Restore trust and social cohesion among divided ethnic groups.
2. Empower a new generation of peacemakers through training and mentorship.
3. Provide practical skills and safe spaces that enable women, youth, and survivors to rebuild their lives with dignity.
4. Create a sustainable community hub that will continue serving Sinjar long after the project ends.
5. Model genuine community building in a region scarred by genocide and conflict.
6. Produce long-term impact by investing deeply in local leaders, relationships, and community ownership. The project aims to spark a self-sustaining movement of peacebuilders who will carry the vision forward for decades.
Get Involved
Your support will help turn the PiP Sinjar Hub into a living reality—a place where former strangers become friends, where trauma gives way to hope, and where the next generation grows up believing that ‘peace is possible’.
Together, we can help the people of Sinjar write a new chapter—one of “progress in peace.”
