UK honours British Kurd for services to refugees and survivors in Kurdistan Region

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – One hundred and twenty five people on Saturday received awards for their exceptional service to the UK overseas in the New Year Honours by King Charles III, including Taban Shoresh, a Kurdish genocide survivor, and the founder of the Lotus Flower.

The UK recognized her “for an exceptional and sustained contribution to supporting refugees and displaced conflict survivors in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”

Shoresh’s father was a political activist during the reign of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in the 1980s and she and her family were imprisoned when she was just 4-years-old. They narrowly escaped being buried alive before being flown out of the country by Amnesty International to build a new life in the UK.

In 2014, she returned to the Kurdistan Region as an aid worker, and upon arrival, was delivering provisions to displaced Yezidis trapped on Mount Sinjar after the ISIS genocide against the ethnic group. Back in London in 2016, she launched The Lotus Flower, a women’s rights organization that runs several safe centres for women and girls, while employing more than 200 local staff.

“To date the organisation has helped more than 60,000 women, girls and community members through the delivery of projects which support business, education, peacebuilding, well-being and human rights,” according to a press release from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

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“I’m very happy and honoured with this recognition. I came here as a refugee at the age of six seeking safety. Fast forward many years and I’m delighted that I get the opportunity to give back and help those in need. I believe with more compassion, empathy and action we can all be change makers in this world,” Shoresh said.

She continued, “So much hard work has gone into supporting 60,000 conflict survivors in Kurdistan in the past eight years. When I first started The Lotus Flower, nobody paid us any attention because we weren’t known, but thankfully our persistence to work genuinely from the heart paid off. It’s reached the point where organisations now come to us because they’ve heard of our work.” 

“This is a tribute to all our achievements and dedication as a team. It’s even more special because it connects two places I call home; Kurdistan and the UK,” she concluded.

Editing by Dastan Muwaffaq