https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdQ7IWvXDwE

By Ciwanen Azad UK

Şehit Ronahî Youth Centre is Now Open! The autonomous Youth Centre is a reaction to the traumas diaspora-youth are inflicted with. The gang culture, drug abuse and suicide rate of the youth who are children of migrants are no coincidence. These tragedies are a result of a lack of belonging, this is a particularly tragic reality for Kurdish Youth, usually forced to migrate from a country in which they had to live their identities and cultures in secret, to a country in which they still do not belong to. In many cases, the youth are susceptible to the glitz and glamour of Capitalist-Modernity and start living meaningless lives, in the false name of individual ‘freedom’. ‘Freedom is to fight’, Sakine Cansiz once said. Freedom is to fight for a meaningful existence. We invite you to explore that meaning together. We have decided to name this Youth Centre after one of the martyrs of the Paris massacre, Leyla Saylemez (nom de guerre: Ronahî). Ronahî grew up in the heart of Europe, in Germany and met with the Kurdish Freedom Movement in her University years. Joining the resistance of the Kurdish Youth Movement in her teens, she started her rebellion against the system she grew up in. Especially as a young woman, she showed us all how to fight against this brutal system which attempts to enslave the spirit of the youth. Along with 2 other comrades, Sakine Cansiz and Fidan Dogan, she was assassinated in 2013 as a result of a collaboration between International powers and the Turkish state. This political assassination proves the power of the youth and women and how much they are seen as a threat by the system. For this reason, with the opening of our Şehîd Ronahî Youth Centre, we promise to carry the torch of freedom left behind by our comrades of resistance.

Photography by Lawand Omar