Peace is built step by step, one chick at a time, one calf after another. Peace is returning to Iraq, despite difficulties, even to Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, a territory controlled by ISIS from 2014 to 2016. These were years of violence, fire and destruction. Of the 50,000 inhabitants of Qaraqosh, the region’s capital, at least half fled after the arrival of the Islamic group. Many have not yet returned and probably will never come back.

However, for those who have returned, life is slowly going back to normal.

“One woman we managed to involve in our project to re-open the farms, has her life slowly returning to normal” ​​says Daniele Mazzone, AVSI’s Deputy Country Director in Iraq. “She had lost everything, all the men in her family died. We gave her ten calves and taught her how to raise them. She was able to reopen her family’s farm, and is now the one in charge”.