Celebrating International Women’s Day
The day marks an opportunity to reflect on the invaluable contribution of women.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, we are sharing the stories of two women having a profoundly positive impact on education in Iraq.
Lebanese-born Nidal Al Haj Sleiman and Om Mostafa from Mosul, both share a passion for education.
Nidal is a member of the Education, Peace and Politics (EPP) research network, and Om Mostafa is the principal of a primary school in Mosul who was chosen as an Inspirational Teacher for The Iraqi School Project.
Both have overcome challenges in allowing students to flourish at school. These are the stories of how they overcame these barriers, faced by many in the teaching profession.
Nidal Al Haj Sleiman is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Ulster University, UK, researching educational leadership for social and cultural justice and peacebuilding in Iraq. For this reason, she was a perfect candidate for the EPP project.
Her doctoral research focuses on leadership praxis and leadership learning in international and multicultural schools. Nidal argues for socially and culturally responsive curricula and pedagogies in the classroom, which respond to pupils’ identities and cultural capital. Her path to studying education in a post-conflict setting was inspired by her experiences.
As a Lebanese, who lived through the country’s 16-year civil war and political instability, she finds herself in constant migration. Nidal’s experience of growing up in a war-torn and divided country inspired her to study social injustice in education through political and sociological lenses. This has underpinned her educational career in schools and as an academic today.
Nidal said: “I come from a village in Bekaa, East Lebanon; my father was a farmer and a social activist, and my mother was a teacher; both contributed to my early awareness of social and political issues influencing our daily lives in a very difficult era in Lebanon’s history.”
“Women in the region face all forms of social, economic and political oppression and lack legal recognition and protection at different levels, while being expected to embody patriarchal societal norms and succumb to multiple sacrifices in their lifetime.”
Nidal has had a very successful career, having worked as a teacher and a school principal for many years before starting her research, and has been teaching at the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society for the last few years.
Nidal co-founded the SWANA Forum for Social Justice at UCL in 2021, which hosts researchers and activists working on issues of social justice through education in the region.
Impressively, her many accolades were achieved while raising a family. She has worked tirelessly in her academic work while raising four children whom she loves dearly.
“I’m a mother of four wonderful children”, Nidal said. “It’s a journey I am proud of in addition to my career. My educational and professional paths as a Lebanese woman were not straight forward; on the contrary, I had to fight many battles and combat multiple barriers.
As a member of the EPPP team, Nidal hopes to use her extensive expertise to better understand the challenges facing education in Iraq.
Nidal said: “Through the EPP scheme, I will be working on research in Iraqi schools and with Iraqi educators, which I hope, will contribute to local and contextualised knowledge that moves towards social justice and peace building.”
Om Mostafa
Om Mostafa always dreamed of being a teacher. Since she was very young, she would sometimes play with friends and assume the role of teacher in the group, the “teacher and students game”, she recalls.
Om Mostafa was born in Baghdad but moved to Mosul when she was young. Mosul is her home, and as such, the rise of Daesh and the impact on children was devastating for her to witness.
Once the fighting stopped, Intada was faced with a mountain to climb after the school building was liberated from Daesh.
Her school had been trashed. There was little help available and Intada took it upon herself to restore the facility to a safe and suitable place of learning.
She worked tirelessly, approaching NGOs for assistance to fix the broken windows and paint over the black-painted walls, left behind by Daesh.
But it wasn’t just the school building that Om Mostafa would help fix. Following the liberation of Mosul, many of the students’ parents were out of work and poor. Some mothers were widowed, others were merely day-wage workers, with no guaranteed income. For many families, just putting food on the table was difficult.
Some students would make fun of their poorer classmates. Many had well-worn clothes and holes in their shoes. This caused further distress, after an already traumatic childhood in the city.
Knowing that parents would fear a stigma around receiving charity, Om Mostafa took it upon herself to collect clothes that were no longer needed from wealthier families. She did this without the permission of the parents to avoid embarrassment. She also knew it was important that clothes were simply outgrown, and not visibly tired. This would stop the bullying by classmates while avoiding stigmatising parents. The effect on the students’ wellbeing, she explained, was transformative: “The children realised the school cared about them. It had a positive impact on their behaviour.”
Opportunities and life chances of young girls are greatly improved by education and qualifications, Intada says.
As she highlights, the experience of pupils is often different between genders. Om Mostafa is often concerned for the welfare of young girls who face harassment from boys and men. “Girls and women are oppressed”, she explained. “They need to protect themselves by having qualifications.”
“Young girls are often exposed to harassment, I know one parent who stopped her daughter going to school because of how she was treated, she cried because she wanted to continue but just couldn’t.”
Om Mostafa believes the community must play a more substantial role in protecting women and young girls from harassment. A proper education, she believes, is one of the most powerful tools in achieving this by empowering girls with skills and qualifications. And as a female leader of a school, she is working tirelessly to achieve this.
“Girls are often exposed to harassment, I know one parent who stopped her daughter going to school because of how she was treated, she cried because she wanted to continue but just couldn’t.”