NAZA: Who are we? What do we do?

By Anya Jalal (founder of NAZA)

NAZA stands for Nazdar, a Folklore Kurdish name that means beauty beyond compare. NAZA perfectly describes the vast landscapes, deep valleys and incredible mountains of Kurdistan.

For centuries the native people of Kurdistan have maintained a mountainous life and it is only in recent decades that cities have been heavily populated. Infrastructure continues to amaze the world in Kurdistan and modernisation is an ever growing factor for its people. However, shifting away from nature so abruptly brings with it a lot of issues and the maintaining of a healthy and sustainable environment has become more and more of a problem for Kurdistan.

With poor waste management and little to recycling, this poses an incredibly alarming issue. No waste separation, no designated bins, no actual processing of the waste leads the current problem NAZA was designed to fix.

Piles upon piles of rubbish including medical waste, electrical waste, and all other types of waste are left in landfill to decompose. This takes decades and pollutes the water ways, air quality and poses many health risks to the people and our planet.

The beauty of Kurdistan: out-skirts of Kerkuk, Iraq.

Our Mission

At NAZA our mission is to tackle the piles of waste that decades of poorly managed processes have incubated. Our goal is to see Kurdistan clean, sustainable and leading in waste management. NAZA uses modern ways to target decade old problems by finding the root causes of the problems and slowly and effectively making sustainable changes.

From the Founder:

NAZA started as a labour of love for my land and my people. Inspired by the children of Kurdistan to have the opportunities that my parents did not. Inspired by the eagerness of the Kurdish youth to make a change and start a movement towards sustainability in Kurdistan and revolutionise waste for the future.