Call Artists for Rojava

 

 

 

 

 

Give your work or digital image to support the GUS solidarity projects in Rojava. The
selected work will be used to promote and finance our ideas to rebuild Kobane.

The GUS in Rojava
From October 2017 we have opened an office in Kobane, the city that has heroically
resisted the invasion of the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

Our mission stems from the belief that the political experiment of the Kurdish people in
Rojava (a region located north of Syria) has universal value because it has helped to spread
and defend the principles of equality, inclusion, respect for people’s rights and respect of
nature.

The extraordinary resistance of female and male fighters gathered under the initials of YPJ
and YPG made sure that Kobane was liberated in 2015, but now Kobane needs our help to
stand up and rebuild. It’s time for reconstruction, it is necessary to face the difficulties of
the economic and political embargo of which Rojava is a victim. If it is true that the
fighters while defending Kobane also defended our freedom and our values, it is now up to
us to do something.

Our projects in Rojava, for which we ask you to participate, are two:
Peacetachios and MuziKobane.

Peacetachios
The pistachio tree is a resistant tree, in the partisan sense of the word. Survives in adverse
conditions, withstands drought and very high desert temperatures. It embodies life where
we would only have aridity. Just like the resistant partisans of Rojava, these trees bring life
where others have sowed only death.

The cultivation of pistachio, together with that of the olive tree, is at the base of the rural
economy of Rojava. From here, then, we must start again.

The GUS has made a commitment to recover 20,000 pistachio trees damaged by the
devastating fury of ISIS that has sabotaged the wells and set the plants on fire. We want to

bring life back to the villages west of Kobane where these 20.00 trees are grown,
supporting agricultural cooperatives, rebuilding the wells and protecting the Pistachio of
Kobane, Pistachio of Peace.

MuziKobane
Instruments of hope: music is the beating heart of the millennial Kurdish culture. Through
the music the union of the community is defended, the values of the revolution are
conveyed and the morale of the people tormented by war is held high. There is music
whenever friends meet up in front of a tea, there is music at parties, marches, funerals. For
every battle won in Rojava a song resounds, for every fallen comrade there is a melody
that reminds him.

The GUS, with this project, wants to give the possibility to the Baki Xido Music Academy
of Kobane to start again its didactic activities. Our intent is to buy back the instruments
destroyed by ISIS fanatics in their attempt to silence the music.

What we ask you
We ask you to feel a pistachio tree burned in the desert or a broken-skinned drum that can
no longer set the rhythm of the dance.
We ask you to put your talent at the service of one of these two projects and to give us an
image that you can convey their message.
Send us a file in vertical format in 300 dpi, in colour.
To all the received images we will give visibility on our website and social medias,
mentioning obviously the author and the title of the work.
The images we believe are more effective and representative of the spirit of the projects
will be used to produce small merchandising gadgets such as T-shirts, stickers, mugs,
bookmarks (we willingly accept your advice and your ideas) to convey the project and
support fundraising.

Deadline
Send the material within Monday, June 4th at 12:00 am to:
overseas@gus-italia.org

Contacts
fabiola.abbati@gus-italia.org
f.marilungo@gus-italia.org

GUS Gruppo Umana Solidarietà
Via della Pace, 5 Macerata
Tel. +39 0733 260498
Fax +39 0733 269758