Volunteers aspire to beautify Erbil through painting colorful walls, murals, bridges

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Young volunteers in the Kurdistan Region have come together to add a little bit of color to the capital city through their "Colorful Erbil" initiative.

 

"Anytime you go outside of Iraq, like in Europe, you see something different. You feel people are more relaxed and the mood is better than ours. You see many colors in those cities, on the walls, on the bridges," Project Manager Sarmad Saeed Yaseen said on Thursday.

 

"And then when you return to Erbil, you see we have huge areas and wide views of ugly, grey-colored concrete walls, some of them covered in writing and graffiti," he added.

 

Yaseen, along with six of his friends, decided to take matters into their own hands instead of waiting on the government, to clean and paint walls in their area.

 

They wanted to show how doing something simple, like painting walls in bright colors, could bring beauty and life to his community through a project started in early August he calls "Colorful Erbil."

 

"We want to change people's mood by creating something beautiful with color," he said. "Maybe we can make it a happy area with something that will stay forever."

 

 

Originally from Kirkuk, Yaseen graduated from the University in Mosul in 2005 with a degree in telecommunications engineering and is holding a position with Asiacell as the Radiofrequency Planning and Optimization Supervisor for several years, but claims that he has no "artistic ability."

 

Working with the large telecommunications company, he's had to attend a series of trainings in Europe, where he found his inspiration to "beautify" Erbil.

 

"Barcelona is a perfect example," he said. "I saw beautifully painted walls in many different areas of the city. Most European cities are like this."

 

He also credits Berlin as providing him with inspiration to try and create a cleaner and more beautiful Erbil.

 

Yaseen explained that in Berlin, the walls were painted showing what people suffered through in the past and how the situation has improved today, how everything changed.

 

"Just walking around the city, it's like walking through a museum," he said. "When I was in these two cities, I had an idea. Why can't we do this in Erbil?"

 

After receiving formal authorization in early August to paint the exterior walls of Zanko village, a very large residential area with houses for professors working at the University of Erbil, he immediately opened a Facebook page to gain supporters.

 

The village is surrounded by four walls. They have completed about 75 percent of one of the longest walls since they started the project a few weeks ago.

 

 

Yaseen told Rudaw that their very first donation to begin the project came from an expat who had lived in Erbil for 5-6 years but was being transferred to a different country, and said through seeing these paintings, he'd feel as if he left a piece of himself behind in the city he had spent so much of his life.

 

Although painting the walls of Zanko Is the first phase of his project, he hopes to take it to the government once the entire project is complete to request support to continue his work in more crowded areas and highways around the city.

 

"We should paint something different, shapes or something representing what we, the Kurdish people are doing, something to reflect the beauty of the city," he said, adding that they don't want to continue painting only parallel blocks of colors as they are doing at Zanko.

 

For the second phase, he has his sights set on Sailo Road, where a famous wall in Erbil is stands near 60 Meter Road.

 

"If we finish this and are successful, my big goal would be to do the same on bridges and inside the bridges as well," Yaseen added, which would be the third phase in his project.

 

Right now, he explained, the biggest obstacle Colorful Erbil is facing is funding to pay for paint and labor. The lowest quality paint costs about 35,000 Iraqi dinars for a 15-liter bucket. He said he is also looking for volunteers interested in painting.

 

Regarding what he would like to be seen painted on walls and bridges throughout Erbil, Yaseen said, "The important thing is it should be colorful, not just back or white or grey. Many paintings should have hidden messages inside of them that encourage people to work and just think in a good way.”

 

Another message Yaseen wanted to share with the Erbil community is that people should not depend on the government to fix all of their problems.

 

"Right now we understand that the government cannot solve everything," he said. "We must support them or at least start something in volunteer ways, just start it and let's see what happens.

 

Yaseen wishes that instead of complaining about no electricity, no work, no money, bad air quality, too many generators or bad relations with surrounding countries, people should focus their energy on improving their society.

 

“There are very simple things we can do in our lives for our community, for our city, for our society," he detailed. "Maybe it will reflect positive things on our lives and just imagine, when someone wants to start his day, let it be started with something good or something nice.

 

"The most important thing is, we have to start. It depends on you."