Kobane • Cooperatives as a tool for women’s empowerment
Article of Kedistan, 8 May 2018
Summary :
In a small street in Kobane, the walls surrounding the Kongra Star building – the women’s movement within the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria – house a vast and peaceful garden, green and flowery on this sunny day of late April.
The calm is disturbed only by the roar of the generators. In the shade of an awning, some women discuss over tea. They are fighting within the Kongra Star for the emancipation of women in the region, drawing on the experience of decades of reflection and struggle of the Kurdish women’s movement. In cities strongly marked by war, such as Kobane, of which nearly 50% has been destroyed, it is necessary not only to take care of the reconstruction, but also of the establishment of social structures to organize society, ensuring the participation of women, who played a decisive role in the liberation of the city, with the sacrifice of Arîn Mirkan and of the now-famous commander Nysrin Abdullah.