The Yazidi Healing Farm
Healing Through Community
Canadian Yazidi Association
The Canadian Yazidi Association is a Non-Profit organization designed to assist Yazidis in need. It was founded shortly after ISIS’s genocidal campaign to eradicate the Yazidi people in August 2014 in Iraq.
The Canadian Yazidi Association seeks to implement projects and programs to support members of the Yazidi community and create local and global awareness of the plight of the Yazidis
Our Work
The Canadian Yazidi Association offers a number of different programs, workshops and resettlement services for Yazidis in Canada.
OUR MISSION AND PURPOSE
The Canadian Yazidi Association works with multifath organizations, governments, businesses and civil society partners to design and support projects that promote education, private sponsorship, resettlement, services for Yazidi survivors and for Yazidi women and children, with a special focus on trauma recovery and community based psychological services, economic empowerment, community reintegration, healthcare and livelihoods.
Operation Ezra
Operation Ezra was launched in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in March 2015. Operation Ezra was formed between Winnipeg’s Jewish and Yazidi communities. Over the years, Operation Ezra has evolved into a grassroots coalition of actors from a variety of political, economic, social and religious backgrounds.
Who Are The Yazidis?
The Yazidi people are an ethnic and religious minority in the Middle East, with their largest population concentrated in Northern Iraq. Yazidis are Kurmanji-speaking and practice a monotheistic religion that reflects a spectrum of teachings and beliefs from various other religions including Gnostic Christianity, Judaism, Sufi Islam, and Zoroastrianism. Rather than formal ceremonies, their religious practice involves visiting sacred places.
Yazidis participate in baptisms and feasts, sing hymns, and recite stories. Some of their stories are about historical and mythical battles fought in protection of the religion. Others, told over the centuries by generations of women, detail methods of resistance to the same threats that Yazidi women face today. The Yazidi people believe that they descended solely from Adam, that angels guard the world, and that reincarnation is possible.
Because these beliefs vary significantly from other religions, the Yazidis have been targeted throughout history and persecuted by Muslim rulers in the region who demanded that they convert to Islam.