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Dr. Rashad Zaydan, Iraq 

Biography

One day in 2003, Dr. Rashad Zaydan woke up and found her life had changed: she was inside the vortex of a war. A native of Baghdad, she never imagined that her comfortable life as a pharmacist, wife, and mother of 4 would be thrown into such upheaval. As soldiers swarmed around and through her home in the early days of the Iraq war - the injured lying in the streets - she and her husband scrambled to respond. Ingeniously converting their garage into a make-shift emergency clinic, they stitched wounds, gave medicine, and nurtured complete strangers. What Rashad didn't know then was that this was the beginning of her new life.

And that life, as we in the Global Room learned first-hand, requires adaptation, acceptance, wisdom, and steely resolve. As we talked on video Skype with Rashad one night, the screen suddenly went dark (the electricity is cut every day at 4 PM in sections of Baghdad).  She apologized to us for the inconvenience - a reality of her daily life.    
Rashad is in the Global Room for Women to share how she has learned to make deeper sense of her life and her family’s life in today’s Iraq. On that path of discernment, she chose the promise that lies in helping others. Since 2003, she has helped and responded to the growing numbers of nearly 1.5 million widows  and 3 million orphans in her homeland. Through the organization she founded, Knowledge for Iraqi Women Society (a non-profit), she gives form to promise. Widows and orphans receive health care, education, finance, clothing and food, micro-lending, literacy and income-earning skills.

With locations in Baghdad, Nineveh, and Fallujah, the society provides classes in financial literacy, reading, sewing, and cooking. And in Rashad’s opinion, one of the most important initiatives is kindergarten classes for the orphans. With over 70 staff and 300 volunteers, she is internationally-esteemed and beloved for her work.  She shares, “It is gratifying to know that the society that you have founded works to help the distressed women and children of Iraq. We do not engage in politics, but are concerned with the practical task of trying to improve lives. When I visit the US, I am amazed by the number of people who express friendship and concern for these women.”

And we hope you will join us and other women across North America as we reach out in friendship to our new Iraqi sister, to honor her story - and to learn what peace looks like in her life.