Current Projects & Activities

To realize our mission, the Foundation implements projects in Iraq that promote our vision. In addition to our humanitarian efforts, the Iraq Foundation currently has four active projects for the project year 2008, which focus on human rights, civil society, and democracy building:

Achieved Projects & Activities

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Interfaith Cooperation Project (ICP)

The Iraq Foundation was awarded a grant from the US Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) on January 12, 2011 to conduct a 15 month project in Iraq to deepen public knowledge and promote dialogue about Iraq’s diverse religious heritage and to enhance religious freedom, interfaith cooperation, trust and mutual respect among faith communities.

The goal of this project is to expand religious freedom for all Iraqi faith communities and promote mutual respect and peaceful coexistence.
To achieve its goal, the project’s immediate objectives aim to support interfaith cooperation efforts and dialogue among university students and youth of different religious backgrounds; use media to document and affirm Iraq’s religious diversity throughout history; organize meetings and provide forums for public dialogue on religious rights and freedoms; and inform opinion makers and the public on the importance of religious freedom in peace-building and promoting citizenship.

Empowering Iraqi Widows to Thrive Project

The goal of the two-year EIWT project is to improve the quality of life of marginalized widows in disadvantaged areas and equip them to thrive as contributing participants in Iraqi society and in the Iraqi economy. Over the two-year period, IF will empower 1,200 Iraqi women through life skills and civic education and provide tailored vocational skills training to 280 women in 7 training centers located throughout Iraq.IF was awarded funds for this grant from the US Department of State's Office of Global Women's Issues to continue our work empowering women in Iraq .

Provincial Accountability and Governance Project

The Iraq Foundation was awarded a grant from the US Department of State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) to implement a project to promote good governance, improve provincial government accountability and transparency, increase capacity of Iraq's anti-corruption institutions at the provincial level, and strengthen civil society organizations' capacity to conduct oversight activities.

The goal of the project is to bring about change in knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding ethical provincial administration, and to instill a new culture of transparency, accountability, and good governance. Through educating, monitoring, and building alliances between provincial officials and local civic leaders, Iraq Foundation will chart a course for change toward more responsive, more accountable government in Iraq.

Post Election Democracy Project (PEDP)

The Iraq Foundation has been awarded a grant to implement a three year project to meet the need for good governance in Iraq during the period following the elections for a new Council of Representatives, which will seek to improve capacity and performance of newly elected women parliamentarians in the new CoR, raise the responsiveness and accountability of the government by empowering civil society, and expand civic awareness and participation in the democratic process, especially among youth. To achieve these objectives, IF will train new women parliamentarians in legislative skills and facilitate exchanges with regional women parliamentarians, provide training to civic leaders on methodologies and techniques for monitoring and reporting on good governance, government policies, establish summer courses on leadership at the American University of Iraq-Suleimaniya for young Iraqis, provide small grants for national reconciliation projects and internships for young, and awards for short videos on civic relations. A web portal for the project will be created to carry all training materials.

Human Rights Advocacy Initiative

The goal of the Iraq Human Rights Advocacy Initiative was to empower Iraqi human rights leaders—in civil society as well as in government ministries, parliament and in the media—to be better advocates for human rights. The Iraq Foundation undertook a basket of initiatives designed to consolidate Iraq’s budding human rights community into a strong, broad-based advocacy coalition pressing to hold the Iraqi government accountable for the state of Iraqi's civil and political liberties. The initiatives were designed and synchronized to be mutually enhancing and reinforcing.

Widows Empowerment Project

The goal of the project was to train disadvantaged Iraqi widows on a set of skills that will empower them politically, and increase their economic independence. The project also aimed to enhance the Iraqi women’s understanding of their rights and civic responsibilities to be better able to participate in the democratic process and civic life.