Center for Intersectional Diversity

The Center for Intersectional Diversity (CiD) is the anti-discrimination section of the Association of Parents from Kurdistan in Germany - Yekmal. The center was founded in 2018. It is responsible for the topics of anti-Kurdish racism, anti-discrimination, empowerment, participation and inclusion. Affected people can access specialist expertise, support and professional anti-discrimination advice - in several languages such as Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, English and German - for their concerns.

The Center for Intersectional Diversity emerged from various Yekmal e.V. projects that have been active in the fields of anti-discrimination and empowerment in recent years. It is a central interface to all areas and projects of Yekmal as well as a connection point of multiple discrimination experiences of our target groups, e.g: Families (mothers and fathers), young people and their children with a history of flight and migration.

Our understanding of intersectional diversity

Intersectionality: describes the overlapping and simultaneity of different forms of discrimination against a single person.

Diversity (variety): In pedagogy, for example, diversity aims to provide individuals with the best possible education and develop models of coexistence, as required for a diverse, democratic society, despite all the different prerequisites due to the respective different positionings in society.
Diversity is often understood in politics with a focus on minority rights and anti-discrimination measures.
As a Kurdish parents' association, we supplement the aspect of diversity with a component that is critical of power and dominance in order to demand inclusive, democratic rights for all people in our society - and not just to restrict an exclusive practice of diversity to certain privileged groups and socio-political areas.

The specific Kurdish experience - intersectional diversity experiences of an invisible community

The Kurdish community is diverse, transnational and significant. This diversity of social and historical-actual political experiences is particularly suitable for demonstrating the connections between intersectionality and diversity in relation to racism and discrimination. This mosaic picture can be seen in the composition of the staff structure at Yekmal e.V. as well as in the interaction with the different target groups of Kurdish-speaking people and families who make use of the services offered by Yekmal e.V..

Two important projects are currently located under the umbrella of the Center for Intersectional Diversity. These are:
1. anti-discrimination counseling in the Kurdish language
2. the Neukölln registration office
3. the contact point against violence and discrimination in Berlin-Neukölln
4. together we are strong

The phenomenon of discrimination and racism is a cross-cutting issue in many areas of life such as education, work, housing, health, culture and politics. It extends all the way through to the obstacles to accessing social decision-making and participation processes and to influencing opportunities for self-determination. The Yekmal association aims to change this situation through its social work.

Yekmal's anti-discrimination work has four main pillars in its work against racism and discrimination:

Community-based anti-discrimination counseling in the Kurdish dialects Kurmanci, Sorani and Kirmancki (Zazaki).
Recording discrimination (monitoring & evaluation): All forms of discrimination are recorded by our anti-discrimination counseling, evaluated anonymously and published annually as a report.
Empowerment measures for people affected by racism and other forms of discrimination: Empowerment offers from particularly vulnerable groups such as families, children and young people for self-empowerment and strengthening.
Qualification and training formats as well as other offers for multipliers on the topic of anti-Kurdish racism and intersectional discrimination.
We focus on the following forms of discrimination and racist attributions: