DAAD Prize for Iraqi Yazidi Hadya Sleiman
Her life has it all: drama, fear of death, courage, never giving up – and yes, a happy ending, for the time being. It is the life of a young student at the University of Bremen, a Yazidi from Iraq, who narrowly escaped the hell of IS terror in the summer of 2014 and has now been awarded the DAAD Prize, which international students receive for their high level of social commitment and academic achievements. The prize was awarded to 28-year-old Hadya Sleiman shortly before Christmas by Dr Mandy Boehnke, Vice Rector for International Affairs, Academic Qualification and Diversity.
On 19 January 2023, the German Bundestag passed an extraordinary resolution recognising as genocide the crimes of the terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS) against the Yazidis in Iraq. At the beginning of August 2014, IS forces attacked the Sinjar region in northern Iraq, killing 5,000 Yazidis, abducting and enslaving more than 7,000 and displacing hundreds of thousands. Hadya Sleiman just barely managed to escape with her parents and siblings on 3 August. The family then lived in tent camps in northern Iraq, in constant fear that IS would advance even further. Finally, they decided to flee to Europe – a dangerous route through Turkey, in an open boat across the Aegean Sea to Greece and then one way or another to Germany.
Rotenburg an der Wümme. Here the Sleimans officially receive asylum in early 2016, living at first in refugee accommodations. Hadya wants to study, wants to become a teacher – like her father. And she doesn't let the vagaries of German grammar and German bureaucracy get her down. After three years, she knows German so well that she is accepted at HERE AHEAD, a unique programme offered through a partnership between all of Bremen’s public universities that offers preparatory studies for international university applicants. She succeeds there and is admitted to Uni Bremen’s biology programme in autumn 2020. But not for teacher education. Two years later, after a change in the exam regulations and further exams as a guest in the education programme, she has overcome this hurdle.
Since October 2022, Hadya has also been studying art and educational science for a teaching degree. She has already completed her first school internships and now works part-time as an educational assistant at the Julius-Brecht-Allee School Centre. Prof Yasemin Karakaşoğlu, a Uni Bremen educational scientist, nominated her for the DAAD Prize, which comes with 1000 euros. The Bremen school system can look forward to adding a wonderful teacher to its future ranks.