Andy takes a hard breath while carrying the black bags filled with waste with her colleague Yasser to put it in a mechanism for getting rid of waste that belongs to the municipality of Mosul. She participates with her colleagues in the campaign to cleaning up her city that she wants to see without garbage.
The weight of waste bags has caused many women not to work alongside men in ” the cleaning campaign” to clean the Mosul but in the end everyone wants to see the city clean and waste-free. They want to show that bright face of their city that has taken on its wounds and begun to heal.
Participants in the cleaning campaign
Andy is an Yezidi, who lives in Bashika, came early to Mosul this early morning and may not have breakfast but works hard with others
“The Mosul city is my city and I am happy to participate in order to get the city back better than it was, This campaign can be shared by everyone who can not go out with us, Anyone can clean in front of his house, or can clean his commercial place and that’s enough” she said.
The vehicles and volunteering of both sexes and members of the security forces have been distributed since the early morning on both sides of the city. Abdul Qadir al-Dakheel mayor of Nenevah says “More than (500) machines and (3000) cleaners of all sections of the municipalities of Nineveh and fourteen non-governmental organizations and volunteer team in addition to all the people have participated in the campaign with great enthusiasm”.
The campaign has turned into an environmental, social and humanitarian revolution. It is not only volunteers and organizations in Nineveh province, but also the Barzani Charity Organization coming from the Kurdistan region with about 30 vehicles and more than 100 volunteers coming from Erbil” said Rizkar Obaid, a member of the Barzani Charity Foundation. He said that they will also carry out an awareness campaign for citizens through leaflets and posters as well as seminars because the citizen is also responsible for the hygiene and cleanliness of his city.
During the cleaning campaign
The We started “Badina” campaign has been called for by the Crisis Cell recently formed in the province of Nineveh, as it witnessed extensive participation by the volunteer teams and service institutions in addition to the security forces.
“The one thousand miles step begins with the first step. It is not just a clean-up campaign but it has social and humanitarian dimensions for the cohesion of the people of Nineveh,” says Mizahim al-Khayat, head of the Ninawa Crisis Cell. “We will be one united team to build this city. We will extend later to the districts and areas of the province”.
Cleaning operations continued for many hours during the day and at the end of the first stage, the media center of the Crisis Cell said in a statement that it lifted 3572 tons of waste and rubble and opened 152 streets on both sides of the city.
The city began to rise on its rubble and debris. The campaigns, which began months ago to remove the rubble, later continued to raise garbage and may extend to the future of building houses. Life will not stop in this city as long as there are young people like Andy and her other colleagues.
She puts the heavy bag in place and then returned to her cleaning broom to complete the cleaning with her colleague. She took pictures from time to time with the streets that had gotten rid of her dirt. Other people with the packed piles gathered from the streets as if to say secretly: “Goodbye we will not see you in our city anymore.”