By Alexandra Di Stefano Pironti

BARCELONA, Spain – Substituting plenty of goodwill for what they lacked in money, a group of Kurdish students in Norway has succeeded in sending a bit of warmth this winter to some of the tens of thousands of Syrian Kurdish refugees in the Kurdistan Region.

“Since it was winter and the refugees had literally nothing, the only things we could help them with were clothes, shoes and blankets,” said 23-year-old Saresh Mohamad, a founder of the Kurdish Student Organization (KSO), at Norway’s University of Stavanger, which organized the drive.

The KSO collected and shipped 350 kilograms of clothing for the refugees, who are estimated at more than 250,000.

“The people around us were very positive about the project and helped us with getting out word and getting the collection,” said Mohamad, who was born in Erbil and arrived in Norway at the age of nine.

The students managed to get a discount deal to send a 200 kilogram shipment through Aryan Transport. They had another stroke of luck when someone who buys trucks in Europe to sell in Kurdistan agreed to have 150 kilos of clothes loaded into a new vehicle going to Kurdistan.

”We still have a few hundred kilos left and we will send them as soon as we have enough money for the transportation,” said Mohamad, who founded KSO with fellow students in 2013.

He explained that since the students don’t have jobs or earnings they have to rely on goodwill or money collections to pay for the shipments.

”We have to have solidarity with other Kurdish people... we have a common goal, namely to become independent and have our own country. Therefore it is important to stick together and to help each other,”

The Kurds are scattered at the crossroads of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. The United Nations has thanked authorities in Kurdistan for taking in the tens of thousands of Syrian arrivals. Kurdish officials have frequently pleaded for international help to cope with the huge numbers of refugees.

Mohamad’s co-leader in the KSO, Shara Mabast, came up with the idea of helping the refugees after seeing a video of the homeless Syrians walking barefoot in the snow. It reminded her of her own childhood, being on the run from country to country until her family reached Norway.

The clothes are expected to reach Erbil in a few days.

The KSO started only with 13 people and now has 50 members. It expects to keep growing, said Mohamad. He said he and his fellow leader in the KSO are both studying petroleum engineering ”to help Kurdistan one day with our education.”

Mohamad said that helping the Syrian refugees was just one of the KSO’s projects. Its deeper aim, he said, is to preserve Kurdish culture and traditions.

He said what KSO wanted was to stimulate Kurdish high schoolers in Norway to finish university in order to help Kurdistan with their skills. The KSO also aims to continue charity work in Kurdistan and to raise awareness in Norway about the Kurds.

”We now live in Norway, some of us were born here and others came at a really young age,” explained Mohamad. “Sometimes, because of our daily lives, we speak more Norwegian than Kurdish. Therefore, it is really important to have a reminder of our history and roots,” he said. “Because, after all, who are we without history and roots?”


Rudaw