About Better Together
The story behind a passionate, growing community.
Our story
In 2022, Dr. Rafal Salam founded Better Together (Ahsan Sawiya), a women’s community on Facebook, to create a new, safe and supportive space that encourages women to learn, create and share their experience.
The idea came from the need for a gathering that brings together women of every age, background and experience, through a mix of online conversation and real-life activities, to support every woman’s personal and professional growth and to build an aware, knowledgeable society through educational workshops and humanitarian initiatives in many fields.
In November 2023, after a full year online in a group of more than twenty thousand women, we held the first event that brought Better Together members together in person. Today the community runs four ongoing initiatives, Her Health, Empower Her, Her Book and Her Giving, alongside two fun workshops every week.
Connecting the dots
Four words shaped our identity, and each one connects to the next.
Women
A community of women of every age, background and experience.
Empower
Expert support and entrepreneurship training that strengthen women’s economic independence.
Learning
Workshops, health seminars and a reading club that encourage women to learn, create and share what they know.
Connection
A mix of online conversation and real-life activities, and a professional network built through regular meetups.
Our initiatives
Four initiatives that are still going strong, and two fun workshops every week.
- صحتها Her HealthHealth awareness for womenLaunched in 2022 to raise women’s health awareness through specialist health seminars and interactive discussions with experts in medicine, nutrition and mental health.
- مكّنها Empower HerEconomic independence for womenLaunched in November 2023 at the first event that brought Better Together members together in person, to support women who run small and medium businesses and train them in entrepreneurship.
- كتابها Her BookReading club and cultureLaunched in 2024 to spread a love of reading among women, with weekly in-person meetings that began in Baghdad and have spread to Mosul.
- عطاؤها Her GivingGiving and helping among womenLaunched in 2025 to root the values of giving and helping among women, by collecting donations and directing them to women going through hard health, social or financial circumstances.
- ورش أحسن سوية Weekly WorkshopsTwo fun workshops every weekFun matters to us as much as learning, so every week we run two workshops full of enjoyment and new skills, each with more than 60 women.
Founder
Dr. Rafal Salam Al-Azzawi
Founded Better Together in 2022. Her Health grew out of the health-awareness campaigns she has run on social media for about ten years.
What members gain
- Exclusive opportunities
- Members get job and training opportunities in many fields, such as the field training we ran with Miswag.
- Support for your business
- Professional support that builds the skills the Iraqi job market asks for, to help small businesses grow, including training with Fedshi.
- A wider network
- Our community is full of experienced, highly capable women, so members build a successful, inspiring professional network through our regular activities.
- Something every day
- Constant, active conversation: each day of the week has its own topic, plus an open day for anything else.
- Sharing experience
- The ideal place to share experience, in an ambitious community and a supportive setting, in person and online.
Our manifesto
In a world full of challenges and hardship, it falls to us to support each other and learn from each other, so that together we build a braver, more aware society, passionate about every field.
وسط عالم مليان بالتحديات والصعوبات، يجي دورنا حتى نساند بعض ونتعلّم من بعض…
As featured on
The Better Together initiative: a community front for empowering Iraqi women.
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