Who We Are

Regenerate Shingal: Dedicated to Supporting the Ezidi Community

Regenerate Shingal e.V. is a nonprofit committed to regenerating Ezidi life in Shingal through cultural, ecological, and social restoration. It emerged from deep relationships between the Benedictine nuns in Dinklage, Germany, and Ezidi refugees who arrived after the ISIS genocide, and is grounded in a shared understanding of hospitality and the sacredness of life.

The initiative unites religious, political, and social actors from the West with the Ezidi community to pursue justice, peace, and renewal by supporting genocide survivors, revitalizing farms, springs, and ancestral lands, and restoring sacred sites and essential community infrastructure.

Who Are the Ezidis?

The Ezidis are an indigenous community with a culture and spirituality dating back thousands of years. However, in August 2014, they experienced a brutal genocide by the so-called Islamic State (IS), which cost thousands of lives, tore families apart, and devastated the Ezidi homeland in the Shingal region. To this day, the survivors suffer from the consequences: displacement, destroyed infrastructure, and the loss of their livelihoods.

The Ezidi community is not giving up. With unbroken determination, they are working to rebuild their villages, revive their culture, and protect their holy sites. Our association supports them in this endeavor.

Eleven years after the genocide, 125,000 Ezidis have returned to Shingal—but reconstruction is progressing slowly. 150,000 displaced persons are still living in precarious conditions in Kurdish camps with virtually no internal support or international aid.

Why Regenerate Shingal?

“The complex connection between landscape, social structure and the traditions of an oral religion mean that severing the ties between the Ezidi (sic) community and its homeland may accomplish what ISIS has failed to do: bring about the end of Ezidi religion as a way of life.”

Ezster Spät, Ezidi researcher and Author of “The Yezidis”

We Believe

Survivors of genocidal violence can heal when they receive the support they need to build resilience and regenerate their communities.
We all have a part to play in protecting religious, cultural, and ecological diversity.
We are called in solidarity with survivors to advance fairness, dignity, and justice.

Our Mission

To restore the natural, cultural, agricultural, social, and religious landscape of Shingal
To ensure survivors receive the support needed for healing and recovery
To promote regenerative farming for food security and sustainable livelihoods
To build infrastructure that enables communities to return and rebuild