A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project is hiring widows and other female workers to renovate schools in West Mosul.
Painting murals, fixing school desks and planting trees are just some of tasks undertaken by the women.
Wearing dusts masks and overalls these women get to work at a school in West Mosul.
Some were widowed during the conflict in Iraq while others are new graduates, but all are working to provide a better educational space for the next generation. It’s part of a project by the United Nations Development Programme to renovate schools and health centres in West Mosul.
“When we enter a health centre or a school we divide the work into a painters group who will make the murals, and the skilled and non-skilled female workers who do the maintenance and provide the schools with study desks,” explains Maha Majid, a UNDP field monitor.
Creating paintings and murals as well as fixing desks and planting trees are just some of the services being provided by these local women.
Most are widows or women who lost members of their families during the Islamic State group’s presence in Mosul.
Shayma Mohammed is a widow and mother of six children.
“The work that we do here is maintaining the study desks. We fix and renovate the broken desks and we also make new ones,” she says.
“We also plant trees, and we paint the desks.”
The project will run for 45 days.
Regular workers, fixers and painters are paid 20 US dollars per day and skilled laborers are paid more.
It’s funded by UNDP and implemented by an NGO called Tariq al Tebr.
The project aims to provide a source of income for widows and single mothers in the area and 95 women have been hired so far – most of whom are now the sole provider in their families.
Manal Idris is a graduate from the fine art intuition in Mosul.
Although she studied ceramics, she has a talent for drawing, and was hired by Tariq al Tebr to paint murals in West Mosul schools.
“The schools here are in very bad condition,” she says.
Idris’ contract with the UNDP only lasts for the 45-day duration of the project, “which is a very short period but this is what was available,” she says.
The Associated Press
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