Revitalizing the Nineveh Plains: Shlama Foundation completes installation of solar water pumps in Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian villages

NINEVEH PLAINS, Iraq – With the installation of 30 solar water pumps at farms in Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian villages across the Nineveh Plains, the non-governmental aid organization Shlama Foundation has completed a solar project it started with backing from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Thanks to the new solar water pumps that Shlama Foundation has been able to install on farms in Alqosh and Telesqof, Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian farmers are now assured of a continuous supply of electricity and water.

In 2019, US government-sponsored USAID announced that it would partner with Ankawa-based Shlama Foundation in Iraq on a solar panel installation project under the USAID New Partnerships Initiative (NPI). The New Partnership Initiative intends to stimulate more diversified humanitarian aid initiatives by strengthening capacity building projects run by community- and faith-based organizations with local operating networks to support the return and recovery of displaced religious and ethnic minority communities in among others the Nineveh Plains.

Check out how the Shlama solar team is changing the lives of farmers with the installation of solar water pumps! Thank you @USAIDMiddleEast for your support and O-LIVE for capturing these moments! pic.twitter.com/0nSApw1OVG

— Shlama Foundation (@ShlamaF) July 25, 2021

Since 2019, together with partner USAID, Shlama Foundation has trained local solar engineers, installed solar panels on homes, installed solar streetlights in community spaces in Alqosh and Telesqof, and Shlama now has also provided solar water pumps to Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian farms in the Nineveh Plains.