UNIQUE INSIGHTS INTO THE WORLD OF THE YAZIDIS – OUR PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS AS PART OF THE YAZIDI COMMUNITY ARCHIVE PROJECT

A project for the Yazidi community, by the Yazidi community – this is the essence of the HÁWAR.help Yazidi Community Archive. HÁWAR.help’s Yazidi Community Archive documents and preserves the culture and way of life of the Yazidis by telling their stories through personal material. The Yazidi community is involved through participatory approaches. The focus is on empowering them to create their own material and thus to take an active role in telling their own their stories.

As part of the project, we conducted six photography workshops for a total of 63 participants at our women’s centers in the IDP camps Sharya and Qadia in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The two-day workshops taught our project participants the basics of photography and storytelling and how to photograph their everyday lives, thereby documenting and preserving their culture and way of life as seen through their own eyes.

First, they learned how to use photography to document their culture and identity and make it accessible to the outside world. After the theoretical introduction, they quickly moved on to the practical side of things: equipped with SLR cameras, the workshop participants spent an afternoon capturing their lives at the camp. In addition to the ‘rules’ of photography, journalistic aspects were also covered – all project participants were required to have their subjects sign consent forms so that the photos can be published. Apart from that, there were no limits to their creativity!

During the second part of the workshop, the participants were given an introduction to the photo editing software Lightroom. The workshops were led by a professional photographer and trainer as well as the project participants themselves! At the beginning of the workshops, some participants were selected to receive a three-day training course and then lead the workshops themselves, with occasional assistance from the professional trainer. This not only promotes their motivation but also strengthens self-confidence and supports collaborative learning.

The photographs captured during the workshops provide a moving glimpse into the world of the participants and the world of the Yazidis in the camps, with all its complexity. The photographs form part of the Yazidi Community Archive, alongside the material digitized and archived by professional archivists during visits to the Yazidi community. Of course, the material will also be made available to the community as well as researchers, journalists and artists. In addition, the project and the archive materials will be presented to the wider public through films, publications and exhibitions in Iraq, Germany, and other European countries. We look forward to sharing the stories from the Yazidi Community Archive with you!

Thank you to the Federal Foreign Office for supporting the Yazidi Community Archive and to our project partner elbarlament.

A selection of photographs from our workshop participants