Kongreya Star conference in Shehba

The women's umbrella organisation Kongreya Star holds regional conferences in North and East Syria, where past work is evaluated and the new year planned. In this scope, women from Afrin met in Shehba.

The women's umbrella organisation Kongreya Star, which is organised in North and East Syria, holds regional conferences at the beginning of the year to evaluate the work of the past year and decide on a plan for 2020.

The umbrella organisation's Afrin branch held its annual general meeting at Shehba. The meeting began with a minute's silence, after which the activity report was read out and discussed. The women expelled from Afrin want to make the fight against occupation and child marriages one of the main topics for the current year. In addition, further education and organization of women is to be promoted. At the schools in Shehba, children are to be given psychological care by qualified personnel in the future, since many of them are traumatized by war and flight. Other decisions include the establishment of a library in the Berxwedan Camp, educational opportunities for children, documentation of the crimes committed by the occupying forces against children, and public relations work on the situation of women in the camps.

Kongreya Star: Umbrella organisation of the women's movement in North-East Syria

Kongreya Star works on the basis of confederalism as the umbrella organisation of the women's movement. The association makes decisions every two years through a conference and delegates decision-making authority to its various committees and member organisations. It is organised by communes and councils, but also by academies, trade unions, political parties, cooperatives, associations and committees. In various fields, women have developed structures and associations that deal with women's problems. A lot of work is being done in the economic field as well. The Women's Economic Committee of the Autonomous Administration and Kongreya Star have supported the foundation of many women's cooperatives and developed opportunities for women to learn skills and become financially independent. These projects envisage that purely women's enterprises develop a different mode of work from the dominant, capitalist modes of operation.

Other interesting developments include the development of the Jineoloji, an academic discipline that attempts to develop a methodology and epistemology of liberation through the perspective of women. Another is Jinwar, a village of women and children that practices collective modes of administration and economy. In "women's shelters", which exist in all cities and many smaller towns, domestic problems such as violence, marriage and divorce as well as oppressive family behaviour are solved in particular.