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.
Communes are the most basic unit of the political system of North and East Syria. They are established in Article 48 of the Social Contract, which defines the commune system as “the essential basic organizational form of direct democracy. It is a system that sets out an organizational and administrative framework within which to make
Women's movement Kongreya Star is a motor for the development of women's cooperation and the economic independence of women in North and East Syria.
Last year, the municipality of Qamishlo has set up public transport for the first time in this city: the Basên Gel (People’s buses). It is the first step towards more sustainable and affordable transport in North-East Syria, a region where people mostly rely on individual motorized transport and expensive privately run companies, in times of strong inflation of the Syrian pound. RIC interviewed the head of the municipality committee of Qamishlo to understand how the bus service came into existence, how it is working as of today, and what future projects look like. The interview was carried out on 20 July 2020.
A lot happened since our last picture gallery published only one month ago. During those weeks, we notably went to a village called Rêhanik to help Kurdish friends there to build a new communal park where families from the village can gather to spend time together. But we mostly focused on the plantation of vegetables
The Rojava revolution is under attack. Debbie Bookchin and Emre Şahin share their thoughts on this unique revolutionary process after recently visiting the region.
The ideology of the Kurdish liberation movement contemplates ecologism as one of its fundamental pillars. Even so, owing to nine years of war, barriers remain to its implementation.
“In the liberated areas, every harvest is a revolutionary act. Our enemies aim to destroy the revolution by starving us – through embargo, arson, and violence. The collectivised lands we harvested this week lie in the shadow of a militarised imperialist border that divides the Kurdish people from each other, and in sight of fields
After the first snow since four years in February, spring has come to Rojava and we are happy that we could start again our ecological work at the internationalist commune. In the last months we were not able to do practical work because of the war, so there‘s a lot to do. In the last
As April is one of the last months before the summer, we were focusing on the work at the site of our academy. We were continuing to work on our park of the internationalist martyrs and planted trees in another segment of the academy site. In that area we were mixing olive, pomegrenate, grapefruit, almond, plum and mulberry trees. In other different places we continued with planting vegetables and small bushes.
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.
