Her Story, Our Future: Women of Al-Qataniya

Stories of Strength, Survival, and Rebuilding

March 5, 2025

Author

Christine Domingo Cool

Team Lead, Partnerships, Advocacy and Communications Team (PACT)

Dunya’s Salon of Hope

When Dunya hears the hum of hair clippers in her salon, she thinks of survival.

She was just 13 when ISIL militants stormed her village. One moment, she was a carefree child, the next, she was running for her life. Four days in the mountains of Sinjar, without food or water, before she and her family finally found refuge in a displacement camp. The years blurred together—surviving, waiting, hoping.

Now, at 24, she has built something entirely her own. A salon, buzzing with life, where women come not just for haircuts but for something deeper—a sense of normalcy, of joy, of reclaiming themselves.

“The first day I opened my salon, I felt hope again,” Dunya says, her eyes bright with quiet determination. With the support of UNDP and Nadia’s Initiative, she received business training, a grant, and the confidence to start her own small business. Today, she is a breadwinner for her family, a businesswoman, and a symbol of resilience.

“We can’t change the past,” she says, “but we can build our future.”

Image: Dunya in action in her salon

Najoua’s Harvest of Strength

Najoua still remembers the moment she let go.

She was 16 when ISIL came. She had clutched her blind mother’s hand as they ran, guiding her through the chaos, desperate to keep her safe. For eight nights, they stayed in the mountains, cold, hungry, and afraid. When the time came to escape, her two elderly aunts couldn’t make the journey down. She had to leave them behind.

“I felt like it was the end of the world,” she says.

But it wasn’t.

Now, at 26, Najoua is rebuilding. She is married, raising three children, and working on her father-in-law’s farm. Through UNDP’s training, she learned modern farming techniques, how to use drip irrigation, and how to turn her labor into a livelihood.

“Farming taught me patience and strength,” she says. “When I see healthy crops, I know we are growing not just food, but hope.”

Her farm now sustains three families. And every morning, as she walks through the green fields, she remembers that no matter what was taken from her, she still has the power to create.

Image: Najoua on her farm

Laila’s Thread of Hope

Laila sews in silence, her needle stitching together more than just fabric—she is sewing a future.

When ISIL came, her father and brother disappeared. She, her mother, and sisters fled to a displacement camp in Duhok. Then, in 2019, another heartbreak—her mother and younger sisters were granted asylum in France. She has not seen them since.

“The first week after they left, I couldn’t sleep. The silence was too loud.”

Left behind with her brothers, Laila had no choice but to be strong. She found vocational training in sewing and business development, a program designed to help displaced women build their futures. She learned how to make dresses, take orders, and manage a business.

Now, she dreams of opening her own sewing workshop. “I don’t want my past to define me,” she says. “This is my way forward.”

Image: Laila’s portrait

Hana’s Fabric of Resilience

Hana was nine years old when she lost everything.

Her childhood ended the night her family fled to the mountains. Two days without sleep, her tiny hands clutching her mother’s dress, terrified that the danger was closing in.

They made it to a camp in Duhok, but survival came at a cost. Eight years of waiting, of longing for a home that no longer existed. When they finally returned to Al-Qataniya, what greeted them was devastation. Their house was rubble, their neighborhood a ghost town.

But Hana refused to give up.

She joined a vocational training program, learning fabric and textiles, preparing to open her own shop. Every stitch is a statement: We are still here. We will rebuild.

“The market is coming back,” she says. “Shops are opening, people are returning. I want to be part of that.”

Image: Hana’s portrait

The Unbreakable Women of Al-Qataniya

The women of Al-Qataniya have survived the unimaginable. They have lost homes, family members, entire pieces of their past. And yet, they rise.

Through small businesses, farming, and vocational training, they are taking back control of their lives. They are mothers, daughters, entrepreneurs, and survivors. They are the beating heart of a community that is finding its way home.

This International Women’s Day, we honor them—not just for surviving, but for thriving. For choosing to build when everything was taken. For choosing to dream when hope seemed impossible.

For proving that no war, no displacement, no loss can ever silence the strength of a woman determined to rebuild.

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