HERA presents a message of hope in New York

At Last, Hope

“Thanks to HERA, children rescued from ISIS have hope,” stated Davey Gibian, HERA’s Director of Middle East and Africa as he ended his talk in New York City. Instead of displaying images of struggling children, the talk ended on a high point, showing the positive value of HERA’s work. Behind Gibian were images of children smiling in Northern Iraq. Just weeks before, these many of these Yazidi children had been held captive by ISIS.

Gibian continued, “when dealing with situations as complex and as human as struggles on the front lines of extremist war, it is hard to know whether or not our efforts will yield positive, long-term value or if they are just a band-aid. But what makes us proud of our endeavors is the resilience of the children we teach, who just months after we rescued them from Da’esh, are back in classes beginning in September. For the first time in years, they have hope.” Gibian and the other speakers set this hopeful tone in their speeches, showcasing that even small, well placed efforts can have an outsized impact on ISIS-affected regions.

A Continuous Undertaking

The talk was part of HERA’s ongoing fundraising effort across the United States and Europe. Headlining the talk was Ammar, a former Kurdish Regional Government military forces commander who now works as a humanitarian in Northern Iraq and Syria. He praised the group’s progress in Northern Iraq, stating that, “they have built an underground railroad for Kurdish and Yazidis. When the world stopped caring about ISIS in Iraq, HERA never stopped working for us. They are my brothers.”

As an organization, HERA was founded back in 2014 and restarted as a new NGO in November of 2015. HERA is a fully independent 501(c)3 non-profit and has raised all of its money from private donations.

“We refuse any donations that have government ties,” says Martin Rodriguez, HERA’s Chairman and a decorated U.S. Army Ranger veteran. “We are fully independent and we will always remain that way.”

What Drives Our Work

HERA’s mission — protecting civilians while enabling education and economic opportunities for civilians in conflict — is unique among NGOs both for its underlying motivation and the way in which the work is done.

“At our core, we are a counter-extremism non-profit,” says Gibian. “Individually, each HERA project is part of an ecosystem to combat violent extremism. In Northern Iraq and Syria, where most of our operations take place, our efforts have always been geared to combat the threat of ISIS not through military means, but by providing long-term sustainable alternatives paired with protection.”

Top-Caliber Operatives

To achieve this mission, HERA has recruited a team comprised primarily military special forces veterans from both the US and the UK.

“We have SEALs and SAS working both to assist in escorting ISIS captives to safety with the Kurdish Peshmerga and to build schools, help with the factories, and work with local security forces,” says Rodriguez. “Coming out of the military, special operators have a unique set of skills that really doesn’t have a home in civilian life. We saw the needs on the front lines of extremism for these skills and decided there was a way use these skills to help better people’s lives.”

Joint Recovery

Among the most impressive of HERA projects is the Joint Recovery project taking place in Northern Iraq and Syria. Joint Recovery’s mission is to provide safe release of these captives from ISIS.

Through Joint Recovery, HERA runs a platform to assess the locations of over 1,300 Yazidi and Kurdish women and children actively held by ISIS. In captivity, the women and girls are often treated as slaves while the young boys are converted to ISIS’s strict extremist philosophy. Building off their special forces experience, HERA’s “humanitarian operators” — as HERA’s volunteers are known — help both the Kurdish Regional Government’s security forces and activists rescue or smuggle the persons to safety. HERA provides training, advice, and safe transport for these operations.

“They provide a mechanism for escaping ISIS,” says Ammar. According to Ammar’s sources on the ground, HERA and her affiliate organizations in Iraq have rescued over 100 persons from ISIS in 2016 alone. “As HERA continues to work, more and more people inside ISIS start to understand that there is hope.”

Lasting Support for Lasting Re-acclimation

Gibian stresses that HERA’s operations are part of an ecosystem of support. Following their release from ISIS, HERA manages immediate mental and medical health treatment, safehouses, schools, and even a factory to provide long-term support for the rescued persons. “We ensure that anyone our organization interacts with has access to long-term care, educational resources, and job training for employment,” says Gibian. Through this system, the group hopes to show that there is life after ISIS.

Nationwide Effort

HERA will be speaking around the country, with major events in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, San Francisco, and Arkansas.