-
AL-Zohoor Village new intervention new hope
AL-Zohoor Village (summary background):
The village was established during 1971 when new arrivals of gypsies had come to the area settling down there which encouraged more gypsies to settle down in the same area creating very large village inhabited mostly by gypsies with population 8000. After 2003 and with strengthen of religious movements and the manifestation of some non-humanitarian concepts that was looking to the gypsies as only bad aspect of life needs to be isolated. This led to make the way of living in the village getting worst and worst day after day. During 2004 The village inhabitants emigrated from the village for 6 months but after the failure to find another location to inhabit as the government and other communities refused the community attempt to mix with other communities so they decided to back again to their original location; after several requests to the governor accepted their request to return back but with the condition that government will not be responsible of providing protection to the village. After returning back to the village there was still lack of services which led to the partly people emigration from the area to other surrounding areas the population was getting less and less till it reached its current population 1300. The emigration was mainly because of the lack of services, spread of diseases and above all rejection of the government to the people requests; moreover, the militias attacked the area and destroyed most of its facilities especially the school. The lack of services, the education level the health and continuous government rejection has reached to the fullest and it was a pressing need for humanitarian organizations to interfere and save the humans lives there regardless their belief, their type of work or the way of living of the targeted community.
AL-Zohoor Village and CHF Intervention:
CHF has first entered the village at the beginning of October 2010. Then a community wide-meeting was held on November 01, 2010 during the wide meeting most of community participated and voted to their community representatives (CAG) as some community member described:
"It the first time that some one asks us about our opinion"
The pictures really show the enthusiasm the community has towards the wide meeting and CAG members' selection. The only missing part of this activity was the government as the government was still hesitates to support the community.
Governmental Intervention
As motioned before that the government has rejected all the requests of the community even when there were instructions had come from high level of government; one example to be mentioned here: During 2005 some members of the village contacted the Prime Minister requesting him to implement an electrical net and the Prime Minister approved and sent a letter with # 101 to Diwaniya Governor signed by The General Secretariat of the Prime Minister instructing the Governor to implement electrical net in the village but again it was ignored by the local government.
After the direct contact with the community and watching its suffering, CHF started to contact the local government represented by LC and PC. With using some negotiation skills and with presentation of the village's crises the government started to notice the red flag that CHF raised. That was resulted in a mediate meeting held between CHF staff and Miss Wedad Hatem (Diwaniya PC member – Chief of Human Rights Committee) the meeting resulted in changing of attitude of some of the key leaders in the local government towards the community. That was really noticed later as Miss Wedad and Mr. Jubbayer Salman (Chief of Diwaniya PC) provided a really huge support for the community especially in receiving the Electricity Directorate approval to enhance the electricity network of the village by CHF (one of the pressing needs in the village identified during PRA training implemented by CHF) more over the Electricity Directorate provided CHF with a letter expressing the Directorate's will to implement the net while CHF only provides the electrical materials and Electricity Directorate engineer accompanied CHF staff during a visit to the community to identify the community needs regarding electricity. In fact the approval and the contribution weren't to be achieved without Miss Wedad and Mr. Jubbayer support which was a result of changing of attitude especially that it needs to be mentioned that the community was even isolated no one can enter to the village as the check points that were set to prevent any one to go to the village. Theprevention of going to the area presented another challenge for CHF but again with support of community and LC requests and with the support of Miss Wedad and Mr. Jubbayer, CHF received an authorization letter to enter and implement projects or programs inside the prevention of going to the area presented another challenge for CHF but again with support of community and LC requests and with the support of Miss Wedad and Mr. Jubbayer, CHF received an authorization letter to enter and implement projects or programs inside the village.
Further steps
The whole CHF intervention and CHF activities assisted in
· Making a link between community and local government.
· Encouraging the community to contact the local government and advocate for its needs.
· Encouraging the government to work and meet the community needs.
Above all the mentioned changes, the local government attitude has changed from looking to them as gypsies to humans which is the look that CHF wanted others to have.
After the coordinated work between the CAG, CHF and local government to receive the approvals for the electricity project the government after the successful coordination with CHF and the trust that CHF built with government also started to work even on contacting humanitarian organization and governmental departments to implement more projects in the area even the LC is starting to coordinate with humanitarian organization and governmental departments to construct green houses to generate incomes for the village.
The Village insight
With the serious work that CHF did and the trust that the community and the government has; the government has more requests to CHF regarding the Gypsies the most important is to implement Mobile Clinic (Caravan) and Mobil School (Caravan).