A few weeks ago I started blogging about the “Get Lippy” Campaign introduced by ActionAid. The campaign hoped to not only raise awareness to International Women’s day, but to allow the world to send their messages of support after women from across the globe shared their traumatising stories. The Get Lippy Campaign was a huge success from ActionAids point of view, and now I have come across another success story come from International Women’s Day.
I have recently just agreed to help promote the “Act for Iraq” Campaign in the Leeds area. The campaign is run by The Iraqi Charity Forum, and it is their fundraising officer who has just made me aware of this story.
Zahra Al Bassam, a woman from Iraq, has won the Most Inspiring Story award; from the United Nations Women Make it Happen Award. Her story is below and can be found, along with other nominees here:
Growing up without a father and facing a life of hardship only strengthened her. She would think constantly about her society and how to improve it. Her only concern was how she could help her widowed mother, whom she used to watch working tirelessly to provide food for Zahra and her younger sister.
Seeing her mother hunched over her sewing machine, turning out the most exquisitely made pieces of clothing, at the age of nine she decided to try it out herself! She later learned how to make her own clothes and started taking the pressure off her aging mother. It wasn’t long before she was spending all her time, including her holidays beavering away non-stop at her sewing machine.
Banned from finishing secondary school she had no choice but to educate herself. Even after having her own family, she set about devouring whatever books she could so that she could dedicate her life to helping the poor and oppressed in Iraq.
She was forever thinking about ways she could serve society’s vulnerable groups such as widows, orphans and the poor. Eventually she organised study sessions at her house to encourage women to educate themselves, and develop their skills. She helped them set up microenterprise projects such as jewellery-making and running crèches.
Following the recent war in Iraq, Zahra went back to education and was finally able to complete her studies, and embarked on a Law degree in Cairo.
The four years she spent there were among the most productive of her life: She worked on a charity tailoring project and volunteered in a women’s centre she helped refugees from Chechnya and Sudan to save them from a life of poverty and prevent their children being deprived of an education. She was especially concerned with helping victims of persecution or domestic abuse. As well as this she used to run dress-making workshops to raise funds for orphans and the poor. She helped young orphaned girls by running projects to make wedding clothes, and decorate the orphans’ bridal cars.
For Zahra, it makes no difference how strong or self-reliant female victims may appear; she offers her support to all. After returning home she became even more determined to spend her life alleviating the plight of the millions of orphans and widows in Iraq. So when she read about the Charity Bank for Small Businesses, a scheme being run in Baghdad by the Iraqi Charities Forum, she wasted no time in signing up to teach a tailoring course to a group of Iraqi widows.
The women who enrolled said that they had noticed a real improvement in their skills. They had increased their self-esteem, got over their phobia of using machines and learned how to make marketable products.
The Iraqi Charities Forum has provided 43 widows and women in need with sewing machines, fabrics and other materials via interest-free loans. In this way, the project has given women the opportunity to earn their livelihood and work their way out of poverty independently and with dignity. Zahra continues to support the project!”
Story written by: Sara Atia, UK
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