Ivana is a young Yazidi artist from the village of Tel Qasab, near Sinjar in northern Iraq. She endured many months of brutality and suffering in ISIS captivity, but she does not refer to herself as a “survivor” because she does not consider herself a victim. By escaping her captors, she says she has beaten ISIS, and she now works tirelessly to bring perpetrators to justice.

Ivana remembers a simple but happy village life with her parents and many siblings before the genocide of the Yazidi community by ISIS began in August 2014: “We didn’t have many opportunities, but we were still happy and tried to use the opportunities we had.” She pursued her education in the knowledge that her options were limited without a degree: “Women especially didn’t have many opportunities; they usually do the housework. That’s why I wanted to be a doctor – I wanted to be a role model to other women.” Now living as a refugee in Germany, her ambition to work as a doctor remains.

The special-quota project of the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg, which settled 1,100 Yazidi women and children, gave Ivana what she calls a “golden chance” to start a new life. “I am very proud of the people working on this project,” she says, “because they have saved the lives of others. If these people had stayed in Iraq, I don’t know what would have happened to them.” The challenge of adapting to a radically different culture in Germany was significant, especially the need to learn a new language. Everything Ivana once had in Iraq was suddenly lost, and she had to begin again from zero. Yet she says that the German people have been welcoming and supportive, and that she does not consider the country to be her second home, but rather her “first home.”

One of the support initiatives of the BadenWürttemberg project is art therapy, where participants draw and then discuss their art works and related emotions. Ivana’s untitled painting of a faceless woman was the product of just two such meetings in 2019. She reveals that she had wanted to draw a face for this woman, but ultimately felt unable: “When I stand in front of this picture, I think it is me, and when other women stand in front of it they should think the same, because this woman represents every one of us. If she had a face it would determine whether she is sad or happy, but nobody could be sure; each woman who looks at the painting should make her own decision as to what she sees and what name the painting should have.”

Ivana is hopeful that more Yazidis may receive the support from which she has benefited, and she insists that there is “no chance for the community without people supporting us from outside.” She is thankful for the ongoing support from organizations such as UNITAD but says there is still much work to do: “Half of our people are living in wrecked houses, half of them in tents. This is not the way of life we wanted for ourselves. Supporting oppressed people in our societies is really important.”

“I’m thankful for this [special-quota] project and I hope that there will be more projects like this, not just in Germany but in other places too.”