Jiyan Healing Garden / ZRS Architekten Ingenieure

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Text description provided by the architects. The Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights has opened a new centre for animal-assisted trauma therapy in Chamchamal, Kurdistan-Iraq. The centre is the first step in the realisation of the Jiyan Healing Garden on a 35,000 m2 site in Chamchamal. The various ethnic minorities and Kurdish majority of the Kurdistan autonomous region have been victims of oppression and violence for centuries, suffering most recently at the hands of ISIS and before that regime of Sadam Hussein. Over the last few years many minorities such as the Yazidis have fled to the region before the violence being perpetrated by ISIS throughout northern Iraq. The importance of a functioning mechanism for trauma therapy has become of huge importance for the region as research indicates that without therapeutic treatment, it can take up to three generations for victims to recover from a traumatic experience.