Derik (Arabic: المالكية Al Mālikiyah, Classical Syriac: ܕܪܝܟ, Dayrik, Kurdish: Dêrika Hemko) is a small, relatively green, peaceful and diverse city, comprising of Kurds, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Arabs and Armenians. It contains a number of churches.
Derik is the Qamişlo Canton, in the Jazira Region of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.
According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Al-Malikiyah had a population of about 40,000 in the 2012 census.
In Article 2 of its Social Contract, the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria declares that it is “based on a democratic and ecological system and on the freedom of women”. In Article 57, democracy is the “way of achieving the balance between economics and ecology”. Giving such importance to ecology in a direct democracy based
In the first half of May, the area surrounding our academy was still green. The temperatures were staying below 30 degree Celsius and we managed to spend most of the day outside taking care of our gardens and finishing up the last bits of tree planting. We also opened a completely new area, where we planted mostly olive trees.
Spring has come to Rojava. Everywhere new plants and flowers are popping out. Everything is growing fast and blossoming. It is a beautiful time of the year. People start to move their life to the outside.
This post about the campaign Make Rojava Green Again and the tree nursery “Roj” in Dêrik was first published in German by ANF, 15 February, 2019 The Kanton Cizîre [Jazira Canton] was densely wooded until antiquity. No later than the Bagdad railway from Konya to Bagdad was built, more and more trees were burned. Nowadays
Over the last two weeks we finally planted the first badge of olive trees on the area of our academy. The trees are still small, but already change the appearance of the place a lot. We got the trees from a nearby tree nursery. When the war in Afrin was getting more intense many olive trees were cutted as saplings and brought to the other parts of Rojava, also to that tree nursery. In that way we see on the one side of Rojava the Turkish is brutally acting against people and nature – olive orchards have been burnt down – on the other side we try to contribute to the reforestation of the region.
Sarhad Farm is the second biggest livestock-breeding project in Derik. The project is expected to be launched within one month, and it will be owned by a co-operative society with 400 members.
The House of Co-operatives in Derik has started cultivating the 1,550 dunams (decares) of agricultural land that belongs to Axa Welat Co-operative in the village of Haji Matri, one of the villages around Derik in the Qamishlo canton.
Pêşketin Co-operative Society is one of the co-operatives that has taken an important position in the region of Derik. It is divided into two parts, livestock and agriculture. The co-operative has accomplished partial self-sufficiency since its inception, and it has a participatory nature.
The year 2016 was characterised by the advance of economic projects that aimed to improve the communal economy in Rojava, especially the projects that were connected to women.
In Rojava, the significance of the co-operative system lies in efforts to democratise all sectors of society, including the economy. For this reason, creating alternative means and avenues that allow traditionally marginalised groups such as women to actively participate and engage with the market is an essential aspect of the radical democratic model.
The co-operative started with the participation of 50 women who work the land, cultivating, planting and overseeing the growth of the crops.
Adar Bakery is the first bakery to be founded and run by women in Rojava. With the support of the TEV-DEM Women’s Economic Committee, six women were organised in a cooperative and began production in April 2016, communally making the bread and sharing the revenue.
The Women’s Agricultural Co-operative was established in 2015 by Kongreya Star and the Committee of Women’s Economy. It includes 135 members from Derik and the villages of Braaf and Kojerat, who each participated with 65,000 SYP, and planted on 380 dunams of land.
