When one looks into the eyes of Khalid Qadir Mohammed, one cannot help but see the passion and love for his people.

Born in 1975 in the city of Rania, Khalid is the oldest of eleven brothers and sisters. “My generation was born into a troubled political time.  Under the Ba'athist party,” he told CPTers.  “Many Kurds were murdered, hurt, arrested and disappeared…Because I am the oldest, I was responsible for my brothers and sisters especially since my father became ill while I was still young.  I tried to educate them and I left school to make money for my family by selling cigarettes.  I loved to read even though there were few books written in Kurdish but there were books written in Arabic and many Arabic newspapers and I read as much as I could."

In 1989, Khalid and his friend Omer were abducted at gunpoint by Saddam Hussein’s soldiers and taken to two different prisons; first in Kirkuk then in Baghdad.  "I was taken through seven doors into the basement of the prison and there I saw hell," he told CPTers.  Khalid spent one year in this hell.

Released from prison with an order to join the Ba'athist military, Khalid hid in the mountains until the day of the 1991 uprising.  When the uprising failed, Khalid made the long trek towards Iran where he saw many people die along the way, mostly old people and children.

After the U.N. established the northern “no-fly” zone, Khalid and his family, returned to Rania.  Determined to do more than just make money, Khalid started the Rania Youth Center with the support of Kurdistan Save the Children.  "We started out with one room and some broken down furniture that the government donated to us,” he said.  “We started one English language course and then a course in tailoring.  Then we got one computer and we had fifty students learning Word Program on that one computer."

Khalid is now the director of the Rania Youth Center, which serves about 200 youth a day.  The Center offers fine arts classes, computer programming, music, and sports.  It has a library and puts out a weekly newspaper.

Khalid recognizes the importance of remembering where his people came from in order to make a better future.  He is determined that the Kurdish people will not be erased from history.  He  is also trying to connect the hands of his people to the hands of the international community.  These are still uncertain times for the Kurds.  "There are still extremist groups that believe the Kurdish people have no right to live," he said.  Khalid knows that the Kurds still have a fight on their hands for their very existence.  "However, this fight will not be with guns or weapons,” he said.  “This fight will be through discovering ourselves and rebuilding and the youth should be leading the way."

(A video interview with Khalid Qadir Mohammad is available at http://cpt-iraq.blogspot.com/2010/05/khalid-qadir-mohammed-rania.html )