Lincoln Girl Scout Maysaa Khalaf (center) and members of the United Yezidi Community of America, begin planting trees at the Yazidi cemetery near Malcolm Oct. 21. Khalaf led the beautification as part of her Girl Scout Gold project.
A Lincoln Girl Scout and members of her Yazidi community gathered to plant trees Oct. 21 on former farmland that is now a Yazidi cemetery—the first in the country.
The cemetery is located south of Malcolm.
Girl Scout Maysaa Khalaf, a senior at North Star High School, applied for and received 10 trees for the cemetery from the Free Trees for Fall ReTree Planting program, an effort of the Nebraska Forest Service and the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum.
The day of the plantings, Maysaa and members of the United Yezidi Community of America received 12 more trees.
The group uses an alternate spelling of the religion.
Maysaa, 19, is leading the cemetery beautification effort as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest award a Girl Scout can earn. Girls in grades nine through 12 earn the award by completing sustainable community service projects that make a meaningful impact on people’s lives.
Followers of the Yazidi religion, Maysaa and her family were forced to flee their home in northern Iraq after being targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS, because of their religious beliefs. After relocating several times, the family escaped to the United States in 2016, settling in Lincoln.
“My community in Lincoln is small, but we have come together to purchase land for a cemetery for the people who have died in our new country,” Maysaa said. “While this new cemetery makes us proud, it has no trees, flowers, benches or anything to make it look nice. I want to honor my community and our dead by making the cemetery beautiful and welcoming to families that have lost a family member, including my own family.
“This project is meaningful to me because my father is buried in this cemetery. I want to honor his memory and make him proud of me.”
Support from the Free Trees for Fall ReTree Planting program launched her Girl Scout Gold Award project down the path to success and will be supplemented by additional fundraising and grant applications, Maysaa said.
Maysaa’s goal is to grow awareness about the Yazidi religion and persecution endured by its followers for centuries.
Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi woman, recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to highlight and eliminate the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Murad was among thousands of Yazidi women and girls kidnapped and raped by Islamic State militants.
“A lot of people in the United States don’t know about Yazidis,” Maysaa said. “My project will also prove that Yazidis are here trying to be strong and build up themselves again after 74 attempts at genocide. They are now in a country that can save their lives and rights, and they want to be a real community within America.”
Maysaa joined Girl Scouts to acclimate to her new country and discovered a way to make her voice count. Through her Girl Scout Gold Award, she will teach Yazidi girls and girls from other countries that they can change the world.
“My project will prove that young females can make changes,” she said. “If I was in Iraq, I would be without a future. I will open the door for other girls to start using their voices because they can’t in other countries.
“Now that I’m in the USA, I want to show the world how capable I am. I want to take advantage of opportunities here and make my future bright. Though I am still new to this country, I can do anything.”
