Muddy waters to blooming flowers
Taban Shoresh went through unspeakable atrocities as a child. But what could have broken her only made her more determined to help others…
While most people’s childhoods are filled with trips to the beach and meeting friends in the park, my start in life was very different…
Fleeing gunfire and conflict and going on the run with my family are my earliest childhood memories. My father, Sami, was a poet and a freedom fighter who was rising against Saddam Hussein’s barbaric rule in Northern Iraq where I’d been born in 1982. Saddam hated Kurds like us.
I was just four years old when the secret police arrived at my grandparents’ house where we were staying while my dad was away fighting. There was just enough time to hide my older brother in the basement, before me, my mother and grandparents were rounded up and taken to prison for interrogation.
I remember clinging to my mother and making sure I kept quiet, as we were transported to another prison.
We were held there for two weeks, until our names were called, and we were ordered on to buses. The adults we were with started screaming. It took me years to realise it was because there were diggers there. The intention was to bury us alive…
During our bus ride, I was huddled between my mother and grandparents. Their rigid bodies radiated tension but I had no idea what was happening. Everyone was saying silent prayers.
Thankfully, someone was clearly listening, as the bus stopped on a roadside and two Kurdish men boarded.
‘ We’re here to rescue you,’ they said. The relief was palpable, as we scrambled into a nearby taxi and were taken back to a relative’s house.
Everyone had presumed we were dead… it was like walking into our own funeral. Yet we were far from safe, and went into hiding immediately. If we were found, we wouldn’t escape death a second time.
My mother and I hid in South Iraq for three months before being reunited with my brother.
Together, we spent the next terrifying and lonely nine months getting to Iran, as we fled from place to place at night to avoid detection.
Finally we arrived and I
thought we’d hit a turning point. But it wasn’t long before we were reunited with my father, who was critically ill.
We learned that Saddam Hussein had hired a Kurdish husband and wife to poison 14 freedom fighters – including my dad.
A few of the men had died, but as my father hadn’t consumed the entire drink that was laced with poison, he’d survived. Just.
It was then Amnesty International heard about my dad’s plight and stepped in to send him to the UK for medical treatment.
After another 12 months, he managed to arrange for us to join him in London too.
I was so scared. I was only six years old, I didn’t speak any English and school was difficult.
Over the next year, I tried to be as ‘English’ as possible and deny my roots. Especially when someone said ‘ Your dad is Saddam Hussein’ to me. She obviously had no idea what my family had been through because of that man, but anger burned within me and I pushed her.
It was me that was reprimanded, and after that, I never spoke of the atrocities I’d seen, or the horrors my family had endured.
Instead, I threw myself into education and eventually went on to study international politics at university.
I later worked in asset management, and in 2014, I was asked to give a speech at Genocide Remembrance Day in the House of Lords. I was absolutely petrified, but I spoke about what we’d gone through, everything I’d experienced – things I hadn’t allowed myself to think about for years…
I got a standing ovation. It made me realise that there must be a reason why I’d been through these things and that I should be helping people. So, I quit my job and volunteered for 15 months with the Rwanga Foundation, which provided aid and easier access to education for people in Kurdistan. We delivered supplies to people in the mountains hemmed in by
‘They gave my father drinks laced with poison, but he didn’t die’
ISIS and we were on the frontline helping to build schools and camps for refugees.
We helped over a million people, and when I returned to the UK in November 2015, I knew I couldn’t go back to a normal day job. I couldn’t stand listening to people moaning about their commute, when there were bigger things going on in the world.
I wanted to help people affected by conflict – especially vulnerable women and girls – to rebuild their confidence and lives, to provide them with tools for a better future.
From my living room, and with next to no funds, I founded The Lotus Flower Charity. The name was deliberate – these flowers grow in muddy waters and bloom into beautiful plants, exactly what we wanted for these deserving women and girls.
In time, we secured some donors and spread our message. We set up three centres in Kurdistan and over the next four years, we implemented 30 projects for the refugees.
We’ve taught reading and writing, financial literacy, business skills, supported social enterprises and much, much more. We’ve helped 26,000 people.
Covid-19 has hit everybody hard, including charities like ours. Our funding and donors have fallen by the wayside, but we don’t want to stop helping those in need, which is why we’ve started a fundraising campaign.
At 37, I’ve helped them so much so far and we can’t stop now, when they need us more than ever.
For more info or to donate, see thelotusflower. org/donate. Follow the charity on Instagram and Twitter, @thelotusf.