Protection

Since 2018, Yazda has been a member of two USAID-funded consortiums alongside our partners, IOM and HAI. In our fourth year, Yazda's projects supporting the Yazidi community's return to Sinjar continued: the holistic approach, which places survivors' complex needs at the center of the response, includes mental health and psychosocial support, livelihood, and legal support components.

The sustainable and effective return and reintegration of returnees in the Sinjar region and Bashiqa is underway, as the Covid -19 pandemic has shaped the community's challenges and our NGO's response. Our beneficiaries in 2021 were victims and survivors of ISIS atrocities and victims of GBV.

In Sinjar, 8 Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) staff, 2 lawyers, and 6 livelihood and logistics staff operate out of 3 offices to provide a variety of services to beneficiaries in the areas of case management, livelihood assistance, income-generating opportunities, access to public services, social cohesion programs, diaspora engagement, and administrative support.

As a part of the HAI project, Yazda supported vocational training and apprenticeship opportunities and distributed small grants to beneficiaries to reopen small businesses. Despite the pandemic slowing down the small local economy, these businesses responded to key marked needs and thrived.

The IOM-funded project provided protection programming, including MHPSS, Case Management, financial support, and provision of food and non-food items to 229 ISIS survivors (157 women, 28 girls, 21 boys, 23 men) through Sinjar District.