Education For Peace In Iraq Center

FIELD-BASED PROJECTS: Empowering Youth-Led Advocacy in Ninewa and Sinjar: In 2024, EPICs field office advanced a strategic initiative to equip a new generation of young activists with the skills to drive community-level change in Iraqs complex post-conflict landscape. Building on a foundation of previous training, the program, The Campaign for Better Governance and Public Safety in Sinjar and the Ninewa Plain, moved from capacity-building to direct, campaign-based advocacy. // A cohort of seven young leadersincluding EPIC alumni and new participants from Mosul, Sinjar, Al-Hamdaniyah, and a camp for displaced Yazidisformed five advocacy teams to address critical issues hindering recovery, such as education access, public health hazards, and the lack of basic municipal services. Under the mentorship of Professor Laith Al-Obeidi, these teams developed evidence-based policy papers and engaged directly with local authorities. // The impact of this approach is exemplified by Ali Kamil, a young leader from al-Namrud. Through EPICs training, Ali led a campaign to restore evening education for over 1,000 displaced and vulnerable students in his community. His formal proposal has progressed beyond the local level and is now under review by the Ministry of Education in Baghdad, demonstrating the potential for local advocacy to influence national policy. Concurrently, other teams secured tangible commitments from officials, including municipal pledges to address hazardous waste burning in Al-Hamdaniyah and to create safe play areas for children in Mosul. // This project, supported by SGP-International, validates a core tenet of EPICs mission: that sustainable recovery in post-conflict regions is advanced by empowering local youth with the tools for effective, professional advocacy, enabling them to become architects of their communities futures.

POLICY ANALYSIS & ADVOCACY PROGRAM: Advancing Environmental Justice and Informed Policy on Iraq: EPIC intensified its advocacy on Iraqs acute climate and environmental crises. A major focus was the release of a landmark issue brief on gas flaring (https://enablingpeace.org/gas-flaring-2024/), which detailed the severe health and economic impacts and provided six concrete policy recommendations for the Iraqi government. The brief highlighted that this practice wastes a valuable resource, resulting in an estimated $2 billion annual revenue loss while forcing Iraq to spend billions more on energy imports. Furthermore, we underscored the dire human cost, where communities as close as two miles from flares suffer from high rates of cancer and respiratory diseases, as tragically illustrated by the story of young activist Ali Hussein Julood. EPIC worked closely with Iraqi partners to elevate these issues with national and international decision-makers, including advocating for the creation of a community support fund for those most impacted by flaring. Simultaneously, our policy program continued to provide expert analysis to U.S. and international policymakers, advocating for long-term strategies to support Iraqs stability, fight corruption, strengthen human rights, and address the needs of genocide survivors and other vulnerable populations.