Iraq: With upcycling against the garbage mountains
In 2018, young activists founded the organization “Youth Speak”, which works in Northern Iraq with young locals and refugees. What is special: All projects are put together with and by young people. They want a more sustainable lifestyle in Iraq and in all countries on the globe - and start with themselves.
"Upcycling means turning waste into something new," explains the 24-year-old Haval. He points to a small stool that he built in a “Youth Speak” workshop from car tires. Unlike in Germany, workshops do not take back the torn tires. They lie everywhere on the streets and on huge garbage dumps, where they are finally burned. "In our culture, it is not common to process broken things," says Haval. Only in the course of the Terre of the Hommes partner organization in the Northern Iraqi city of Dohuk did he learn to produce new products from waste again with other young people. "It was a completely new experience for me," he says.
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With creativity and energy
Especially the young people in Iraq want to actively tackle the country's problems and cause changes. The waste disposal is one of the many challenges in northern Iraq. Not least because of the influx of many refugees, the dilapidated infrastructure has reached its limits, the mountains of garbage are growing higher and higher in the communities, the residents have long been overwhelmed with the masses. In order to draw attention to this problem and reduce the waste mountains, the youngsters become creative at “Youth Speak”: While some make furniture from old tires, the other old clothes refine jewelry from fabric residues or plastic waste or even build a biogas plant in which organic waste can be used. Here the 24-year-old Hawaa participated and she is visibly proud of the result:
»It was so easy to build a functional biogas plant. Now our environment is getting cleaner and we save money because we can use the fermentation residues as fertilizer. «
The tables and stools from Haval's workshop are also impressive. The recycled pieces of furniture, clothes and jewelry only make up a small part of the garbage that stacks in the country, but the workshops are more than that: a rethink should take place. Haval has learned a lot, and it won't stay. "I would also like to bring this idea into other areas of life and develop it further," he says. "And I want to encourage other people to do the same."
