Change is happening for women in Iraq

Dalya Ahmed originally wrote this story for Oxfam Newsletter in December 2019.

I worry about Iraq. My main concerns are the same as many Iraqi people – we worry that we might never have a country where people live in peace. We are also worried about our personal safety. I’m from the Khanqeen district in the Diyala governorate. It’s a small city with a Kurdish majority. I graduated from University in 2013 but like many Iraqi students, I didn’t find a job easily after I finished my studies, which was not what I was expecting. I thought after I graduate my dream job will be waiting for me the next day. Within a year of my graduation, ISIS took over many places in Iraq, including Jalawla and Sadiya’a subdistrict in Khanqeen. ISIS was 15 kilometres away from my home.

“I thought after I graduate my dream job will be waiting for me the next day. Within a year of my graduation, ISIS took over many places in Iraq.””

— Dalya Ahmed, Coordinator, Iraq Response Innovation Lab

I was thrilled when I joined Oxfam in 2015, as it was one of the first NGOs that responded to the needs of families displaced by ISIS. Since then, Oxfam has really become my second home, it has given me the chance to directly help some of the most vulnerable people and I get to go to places that I never dreamed I’d visit.

But Iraq can be a difficult place to be a woman. Women in this country don’t enjoy the same freedoms as men. I know lots of young talented girls who have graduated and want to come to big cities like Erbil, where there are better job opportunities, but they can’t simply because family traditions still restrict the movement of girls. Boys can go and work anywhere they want.

I can say that I was lucky enough to stand for what I want and what I believe, but not many girls get the chance that I had.

I work at the Iraq Response Innovation Lab, a pilot program being implemented as a consortium initiative led by Oxfam. Our main objective is to transform how humanitarian response, early recovery, and resilience-building is carried out in Iraq by supporting the development of innovative solutions that solve locally identified challenges.

Dalya Ahmed, Iraq Response Innovation Lab Coordinator, standing with The Washing Machine, an innovation the lab is supporting in refugee camps. [Oxfam Iraq December 2019]

>>> Learn more about the Washing Machine Project

“I can say that I was lucky enough to stand for what I want and what I believe, but not many girls get the chance that I had.”

— Dalya Ahmed, Coordinator, Iraq Response Innovation Lab

We provide seed funding to help innovators test, pilot, and demonstrate new ideas or solutions that will address humanitarian issues. We also help connect innovators to NGOs, humanitarian actors, academic and private sectors. We also give new innovators access to our facilities that can be used for training, testing, and to host meetings about their innovations. As an Iraqi woman, I truly believe that innovation is the way forward. Our local start-ups are essential, and all humanitarian actors should focus on their new ideas to avoid repeating the same intervention over and over again during each crisis. Especially that we are now moving towards early recovery and resilience-building interventions.

Change for women is happening in Iraq – albeit slowly. When you look at the current protests happening around the country you see a lot of women on the street demanding change. I think Iraq will become a better place for women when conflicts of the past stop affecting life today, and when men stop thinking that women’s place is in the kitchen. We must separate our old mindset and not let tradition dictate what women can do.”

>> Learn more about Iraq Response Innovation Lab