Yazidi@School

The Yazidi@School offers free online English courses for Yazidis. Yazidi@School is addressing the educational gap created by the 2014 genocide and its aftermath. The NGO is entirely realized by volunteers and aims to enlarge the accessibility to English education to more Yazidi and engage more international volunteers. In 2023 the NGO was founded by Margaret Rijkelijkhuizen, a Dutch-American English teacher who had lived in the Yazidi community in the IDP camps in the same year after learning about the Yazidis through the documentary "Daughters of the Sun" by Dutch-Kurdish filmmaker Reber Dosky. The students for Yazidi@School work with smartphones. The NGO also ensures that students who cannot afford a smartphone will receive an old smartphone from the Netherlands so that this will not be a barrier to their course. Volunteer teachers offer classes 1-3 times per week. Additionally, we offer weekly teacher meetings online to exchange experiences and materials to improve together. The courses cover 3 x 10 weeks per year. Once the students can be tested online for a recognized level (A1 – C2), they will receive an official certificate for which the foundation will pay. So far, the Yazidi@School Foundation has been running entirely on funds received through GoFundMe. Currently, donations are used to cover costs mainly to send donated electronics to the camps to enable students to participate in the classes. Do you want to volunteer for us as an English teacher, fundraiser, social media manager or do you want to contribute in other ways? Please reach out to us!