Iraqi widows from five provinces have been given the training and equipment they need to start their own small businesses and move forward with their lives.

The three-month empowerment initiative is part of the Kuwait By Your Side campaign, funded by the Kuwaiti Society for Relief and implemented by the United Iraqi Medical Society (UIMS).

The initiative set out to help displaced Iraqi women who lost their husbands to the violence perpetrated by the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) gain the skills they needed to establish their own sources of income.

Training and assistance was provided to "2,500 displaced widows from Baghdad, Anbar, Salaheddine, Diyala and Ninawa, with 500 beneficiaries from each province", UIMS president Ahmed Mushrif told Diyaruna.

Learning new skills

The women were taught skills such as sewing, raising poultry, hairdressing and pastry baking, he said.

They were presented with the equipment they needed to start their own business during a ceremony at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in Baghdad, with Kuwaiti Ambassador to Iraq Salem al-Zamanan in attendance.

In Anbar province, 500 displaced widows received training at the Vocational Training Centre in Ramadi, which is part of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, said centre deputy head Ahmed Mohammed.

"These women come from different parts of the province such as Ramadi, Fallujah, al-Baghdadi, Heet and other towns," he told Diyaruna.

The Kuwaiti initiative pledged to support the widows from the first day of training until they started work, he said, noting that the expenses for transporting the equipment to their homes or workplace had been covered.

Solving a social problem

There is a growing number of widows due to the war against ISIS and the violence perpetrated by the group, Anbar provincial council education committee chairwoman Ibtissam Mohammed told Diyaruna.

Programmes that empower widows provide genuine social benefits by rehabilitating them and helping to alleviate their suffering, she said.

"What sets these programmes apart is that they train displaced women through courses that last for weeks, and then give them the necessary equipment to help them start working," she said.

For example, a woman trained in sewing would be given a sewing machine and those trained to bake would be given ovens, she said.

Initiatives such as this enable displaced widows to be productive individuals in society who are able to support themselves and their children, she added.