Sisters' Stories: Meet our Earth Sister Vaman

Our Earth Sisters have been doing an incredible job in raising community awareness of climate change and implementing their own environmental initiatives recently, and here we’d like to share the story of one of the participants.

Vaman is 28 and lives in Duhok city with her parents. After growing up in Iran due to the unstable security situation in Kurdistan, she went on to graduate in Physics from the University of Duhok’s College of Science. She has also volunteered and worked in different humanitarian fields, and served as a teacher for six months too.

Before starting her working life, Vaman says she had little self-confidence. “I had a shy personality and never expressed my feelings clearly,” she says. “I also did not have confidence in my abilities. But after engaging in work life, I discovered my strengths and this was the beginning of my journey of self-development. I wanted to be an active member in society, to be engaged and improve my weaker points – especially in communication skills.”

Vaman was accordingly very keen to sign up for our Earth Sisters project earlier this year, which is supported by the German Consulate in Erbil. She adds: “I believe women and girls must have active roles and participate in this kind of training so they can become more educated and leave their fingerprints in changing the world for the better.”

During the course of the project, she found the leadership training especially helpful, as it taught her how to deliver messages more scientifically and logically. “The training was very beneficial for me both practically and psychologically,” she says. “I can now apply the methods in other areas of my life and share them. For instance, I have a six-year-old cousin and I am teaching him what I have learned, and how he can be a leader even at his young age.”

Vaman now plans to share her newfound skills with other young people who can help make a difference in society by holding conferences on leadership and producing a short film on her experiences of the programme.

As we reported in a recent blog, Vaman and her fellow Earth Sisters have been busy implementing their own climate-related initiatives in recent weeks, including a clean-up of blocked sewers and drains in Baroshke.

They also gave trees to new mothers for planting in their gardens to improve air quality, and helped install an irrigation system at Duhok University for watering newly-planted trees. Art projects were also unveiled in school and university settings to promote climate change action, and a ‘Safe Water’ initiative saw young children provided with environmentally friendly reusable water bottles.

We’re so proud of Vaman and all the Earth Sisters for their achievements so far…