Leadership Rising

In October of 2011 Ahmad, Hussain, Muataz, Arkan, and Mohammed met via Facebook.  Young, employed professionals in Najaf, they found themselves in a conversation about what they were doing to make things better in their city…or more accurately as the leader Ahmad told me “We acknowledged we were wasting our time other than working at our jobs.”

Being a dessert city, Najaf had age old date palms, other varieties of palm trees along with hectare after hectare of sand and clay. Najaf has bushes and small gardens that are irrigated.  These four young men decided they’d like to “green up” a local area used by children.  The four of them made arrangements to acquire 300 trees which they planted in the sports forum area in November of 2011 They continued planting at additional sports forums and surrounding neighborhoods increasing the number of plantings to 5000.  They did an additional project at the University of Kufa, with student and faculty participation; on the road the pilgrims walk honoring Imam Hussein between Najaf and Karbala they planted trees and bushes; in the late winter and spring an additional 1000 trees went in at 20 schools and 5000 more at football (soccer) complexes. Liking the feeling of contributing, the “Tree Team” marched on attracting notice from private and government agencies alike. They continued to receive support and appreciation from the municipality of Al-Najaf now offering to supply small trees for as many projects as the Tree Team takes on.

On February 24, 2012, a day designated as the “Green Day of Najaf”, enlisting the help of 100 volunteers 3000 trees were planted in Najaf. In addition to the planting of trees the team handed out flyers and posters urging citizens to pick up litter and “clean up Najaf”.  Their commitment to greening of Najaf expands to cleaning of Najaf as well.

These industrious young men have learned to coordinate with schools, and with government entities; they have enlisted college students, school administrations, the municipality of Najaf and citizens of Najaf to contribute to the greening and cleaning of Najaf.  They are enthusiastic, positive and effective!

In their logo decorated Tommy Hilfiger shirts and white baseball caps they breathe pride in their community and a “can do” action oriented model for hundreds in Al- Najaf.

Ahmad and his team are being acknowledged by people beyond Najaf, honored recently as one of the four best youth groups in Iraq at the Festival of the Youth in Baghdad.

Our delegation of seven from the US was introduced to Ahmad “Pre”and his team on the night we arrived in Najaf, November 11th by Sami Rasouli and the Muslim Peacemaker Teams. We were able to join up with the “Dream” Tree Team and plant trees down the median strip of a major road way in Najaf.  With the cars whizzing by in both directions each of 70 trees were stripped of their plastic casing, put in the ground and the dirt packed around the stem. “Grow little tree,” we said; “make Najaf green.” The city has an irrigation line installed down the middle of this median as the team had planted some trees about a year ago.  Those earlier planted trees were 6-7 feet tall.  We planted the new seedlings between the established trees. In keeping with their commitment to the environment Ahmad was careful to not only pick up all of the plastic casings that had held the young trees but also any other litter that he found in the median. Soon everyone was picking up litter as well as planting seedlings.

The “Dream” (as the Americans named them) Tree Team has overseen the planting of nearly 20,000 tree seedlings and other plants over the past year. IARP (Iraqi & American Reconciliation Project)is proud to spread the word about their work and interested in finding a similar project in the US that might want to partner across the sea, via Facebook with Ahmad and the Najaf Tree Team. 

Facebook address is: https://www.facebook.com/projectplantatree