The "Tresses Vertes" ecological project, led by Gulistan Sido, winner of the Prix de la Fondation Danielle Mitterrand

Kurdish from northern Syria, Gulistan Sido is a laureate of the "Programme national d'Accueil en Urgence des Scientifiques et Artistes en Exil" PAUSE. Supported by this program, she arrived in Paris in September 2021 to enroll at Inalco in a thesis on oral and written literature in Kurdish. She is particularly interested in representations of cultural identity and otherness in this literature.

Also, while northern Syria has been ravaged by war since 2011, Gulistan Sido initiated, in October 2020, the "Green Braids" reforestation program, carried by an association of which she is a founding member with 8 other people on a voluntary basis. This ecological and popular initiative aims to reforest a vast region in northern Syria, to combat an extremely severe drought.

Find out more about Gulistan Sido: Gulistan Sido, sowing the seeds of life and solidarity

This ecological project is the winner of the Prix Collectif 2022 from the Fondation Danielle Mitterand. This distinction is all the more important given that on November 20, 2022, Turkey launched Operation Claw Sword, which means, among other things: ground offensive, bombing of civilian populations and infrastructure leading to health disasters and huge numbers of casualties. The national press (BFM, Libération, La Croix, RFI, TV5Monde, France 24) defines the operation as an offensive against the Kurds of Syria and Iraq. These new acts of war are taking place in the same region already tested and terrorized, the offensive against Afrin having begun barely four years ago, at the start of 2018.

Trailer "Bâtisseuses et bâtisseurs d'utopies du Nord-Est de la Syrie"/ Prix Danielle Mitterrand 2022 (3mn43)

The Danielle Mitterrand Foundation has been awarding the Prix Danielle Mitterrand every year since 2013 to civil society players behind ecological, democratic and solidarity-based initiatives that are contributing to a radical metamorphosis of the world. Through this award, the Foundation wishes to shine a spotlight on these often little-seen yet remarkable initiatives. To better refuse fatalism and carry the vision of another world based on deeply humanistic values and respect for living things.

The Green Braids project in the media:

• Reporterre: En pleine guerre, les habitants du Rojava plantent des arbres (December 19, 2022)
• Kedistan: Green braids for Rojava (June 8, 2021)
• Kurdistan au féminin: The green braid: An ecological initiative in Rojava (March 8, 2021)