Rome (NEV), December 31, 2016 – Pastor Eugenio Bernardini, moderator of the Waldensian Board, during a press conference held in Rome last December 1st at the Chamber of Deputies, in illustrating a project aimed at rebuilding the Women’s Home of Kobane (Northern Syria) thanks to “8 per thousand” tax funds from the Waldensian Church, expressed his strong belief that “without the active participation of women it is not possible to build a more equal society”.
The building, located in the Kurdish region of Rojava in Northern Syria, was destroyed in the war with Daesh. Carla Centioni, president of the Association PonteDonna (Womansbridge) – leader of the initiative – at the press conference said the idea was to put women and their “places of politics” at the centre, in a society still very much based on patriarchy, were child brides and a very high rate of feminine illiteracy exist. The house, whose reconstruction has already started, will be a three levels building on a 1,500 sq m ground, projected according to eco-friendly criteria. At the conference Ozlem Tanrikulu, responsible person for the Bureau of Kurdistan Information in Italy (UIKI), read a message sent by the women of Kobane in which they stress that the rebuilding of the house ‘is not only the reconstruction of a place, but it is also the construction of an alternative model of life handled by women”.
