Meet the TV journalist turned human rights activist who’s fighting for all our values. At the tender age of four, Duezen Tekkal’s father took her to visit the German Parliament. He explained its importance and told her of his wish. One day he would like his daughter to be back there as a politician or a journalist. According to Duezen, he wanted her to tell the story of her religious people, of the Yazidis. Her father’s wish came true.
Duezen is now an award-winning TV journalist in Germany, where she was born and raised.
“My father came to Germany because he had a very hard life in Turkey as a Yazidi without rights.”
It was important that his family have a safe life and not be persecuted for their practice of the ancient, non-Muslim Yazidi faith. Yet, it was also crucial that his children know their religious roots. This last hope is why he and Duezen made the decision to travel to northern Iraq, where most of the Yazidi population still resides, as a minority. They kept their plans even after he invasion of Islamic State militants and the tragedy that ensued.
“I knew as a Yazidi woman, as a journalist, and as a German citizen, I would be a perfect captive for ISIS. But for me, fear was never a reason to say no to something.”
The result is Duezen’s documentary, Hawar: My Journey to Genocide. Her film details the plight of the Yazidi people, as told by those who survived the ISIS massacre. Though they live, it’s clear a large piece of each has died. One family tells of nine relatives slaughtered and three daughters seized, the youngest only seven years old. They endure this horror, as well as the betrayal of their neighbors and the media, who offered no support when they needed them most. Seeing the damage first hand, Duezen says,
“I went there as a journalist, and I came back as a human rights activist.”
As a human being she was compelled to act. She became the founder of a non-profit initiative. Hawar. help. The word hawar in Yazidi language means a cry for help. To Duezen, it’s also a synonym for genocide.
“When our grandparents were being massacred by ISIS, our Yazidi women were always crying ‘Hawar! Hawar!’.Help is what Hawar.help provides.”
The vision of her non-profit is to stand for the efforts to create a world in which each individual can express themselves regardless of their gender, ethnicity or religion.” She says:
“On the one hand, it’s about the Yazidi people, yes, but on the other hand, it’s about every human being.”
Her main cause is to provide aid to the women and children captured by ISIS.
“We have 2,000 child soldiers in the hands of ISIS. We can’t forget these child soldiers …..we are talking about four-years-old boys. They have names, they have families. They have lost their parents, and this is something for which we have to fight.”
Duezen, one of eleven children, has her family fighting with her. Once they saw her documentary, it became their own call to action which she describes as
“It was an understanding without words”.
Her sister Tuba, a professional soccer player in Germany launched a program called “Scoring Girls” in support of gender empowerment. The program allows girls ages eight to 18, whether Yazidi refugees or underprivileged Germans, to learn soccer. They are able to get out of their comfort zone of seeing themselves as wives and mothers and to see that other role models exist.
Creating awareness is the basis of every Hawar. help initiative. Duezen believes knowledge is the first step toward change, especially in times like today of false trust and alternative facts.
She feels that these things make it
“….even more complicated to select the news we want to care about and we don’t like to hear. But the importance is we have to go on.”
The purpose of her bestselling book, “Germany
in Danger: Why We Have to Fight for Our
Values Now.” is to inform people about the need for new answers in a new world.
“We must be prepared to stand up for our democracy in the face of “the evil twins,” of ISIS and racists. We cannot let tell us how to deal with the world and what to do. They are loud, but we have to be louder.”
Despite the adversity she’s met along the way, and of all her people have endured, Duezen maintains her efforts to fight for our democracy and to make differences in a fair ways. For Duezen, answering the cries for help all begins with awareness.
Learn more at <Hawar.help>
Creative Credits
- Written by
- Jessica Cantignani
- Image courtesy
- Raheel Raza
