Author: ARCH Team

Good news from Alqosh! As those of you who have been following our project know, we love spending time in Alqosh. Alqosh is an Assyrian Chaldean Catholic town in the Nineveh region of ancient Mesopotamia. Forty-five minutes south of the Kurdish city of Dohuk, and two-hours west of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Over the years, we have made friends in Alqosh and we have discussed how to best share information about the town’s beautiful cultural and historical sites to visitors to the region. That’s why we were very happy to hear that Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the German Corporation for International Cooperation, chose Alqosh as one of two cities to fund a training program to train young professionals to become tour operators.

One of the sites on the tour operators’ portfolio is the Shrine of the Prophet Nahum – the restoration project we are so very proud of. In February 2020, our team will have completed the full restoration of the Shrine’s main building. The completion of the courtyard, the arcades, the old school, and the tomb of the Prophet’s sister Sarah – all part of the shrine – will be completed a few months later.

We anticipate that our project will inspire more efforts to rebuild, to educate people about the region’s history of cultural and religious diversity, and to highlight the community’s interest in sharing their region with visitors.

ARCH’s Deputy Director, Adam Tiffen, just returned from a trip to Alqosh, where he was invited to speak at the graduation ceremony of tour operators from Alqosh and Sulaimaniyah. Thirty students from both Alqosh and Sulaimaniyah completed their studies to become tour operators, and received graduation certificates. The training program was so successful, that it will next move to Erbil.

Adam congratulated the group, and explained that ‘tour guides’ doesn’t adequately describe the new role that each one of them has embarked on. Rather, he emphasized that aspiring tour operators must also be prepared to be ambassadors, storytellers, historians, interpreters, business owners, problem solvers, caregivers, and teachers.

The ARCH team would like to echo Adam’s sentiments and congratulate the graduates of the GIZ tour operator program on their successful completion of the program!