Tell Me a Secret: 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Want to Help Iraqis?

Hello everyone.
I apologize for my extended absence, life kept me busy for the last few months.

People always ask me how can they help Iraqis?

In many ways, if your government is involved in this war, you can do a lot of work to put pressure on it to withdraw their troops or cut their support, and you can do so either by demanding your representitives in the government, individualy and by organizing moves and gathering as much people as possible to do that. A great and essential thing to be done is to work on public awareness, by learning about the situation in Iraq and teaching your local community, organizing speaking events, hosting patriot Iraqis or people sincerely involved in the Iraqi issue, people that have been to Iraq or at least the ME and can give you a sense of the situation. You can organize many of these speaking events in your local community, university, church etc.

ON the other hand!

Mom has been working volunteerly for years now to improve the living conditions of Iraqis in Iraq and Iraqi refugees in Jordan. If you want to learn more about the projects she is doing then please read the post she has on her blog, she talks about the micro projects she funds that helps Iraqi families make a living, since Iraqis in Jordan are not allowed to work unless they have legal residency, and it's next to impossible to have one, most Iraqi families have no source of income, and are in real need for any kind of help, the Jordanian and Iraqi governments have ignored them, and international community abandoned them, UNHCR and other NGOs are doing very, very small work when compared to the numbers of refugees and the size of their needs. If you are willing to help, please read mom's post:

About CRP , why ?


http://www.collateralrepairproject.org/

peace upon you.....Since the beginning of the war against Iraq 2003, I was in Baghdad with my family,Before the war, I was just a mother of three boys, and Civil Engineer, working as executive manager of our firm in Baghdad.Main things in my life , was my family and my carrier.After the invasion, my life was changed, as what happened to many people inside Iraq or outside.The destruction of the country, violence with bloodshed, continued to be a daily ritual in our days.Since that time I started to work with Iraqi women NGOs in Baghdad, my aim was to help poor families, especially who lost their providers, by funding micro projectfor each family, to keep them survived and independent.

But the Iraqi women I was working with them that time, refused my vision, they were from business women, who were seeking for projects to fund their own projects.After I have left Iraq due to bad security conditions, and kidnapping of my son Khalid, the family decided to leave and settle in Jordan in 2005,We kept working to send medical supplies and water units to Iraqi hospitals, then I started to visit poor Iraqi families here, my network started to be bigger and bigger by the passing of time.

First, I tried to visit rich Iraqi families asking them to help their poor brothers and sisters, but they refused, I was very sad and disappointed, but by the passing of time, I decided to give micro loans to fund micro projects, the money was either from donation of friends, or from my pocket, its OK, I just want to see the change of the life of these families, on the ground.I was happy to see a family like Abo Abbas, I helped them with 320$ to buy special gas oven for Iraqi round bread, the man worked together with his wife and kids to mix flour with water, cut the pieces, spread it on wooden plates, then put it in the hot oven, when its ready , I saw their kids used their bike to deliver the bread for Iraqi restaurant around,…

After one month, the family moved to another house, I visited them , it is much better than the old one, the furniture was repaired, they looked in better conditions, I felt happy for them..This small loan changed their life to the better,..When I used to email my new friend Sasha, we talked about these stories, I sent her many stories about poor Iraqi families here with their photos, we talked many times and discussed many ideas about how can we help them?We agreed that micro loans is a kind of tiring operation, we need some one who will follow them to get the money back, If we can fund each poor family with small budget like 200$ , less or more, it will be easier for all the parts, the donor, the family, and for our teams.We decided then to announce about CRP, and put stories with photos , about these poor families here, who has no legal residency and no right to work , so how can they keep themselves survived?Should we ask them to go back home in Iraq to face death?What is the solution?

I think CRP (www.collateralrepairproject.org)now is working to help these Iraqi families who are refugees , with no right to work, with no legal residency,..May be we can help them in a way or another , to keep them survived, until we all can go back home , one day…Then, about our proposals for projects inside Iraq, its either for IDP who are suffering from the lack of basic needs, or for poor Iraqi families inside many provinces who are abandoned from the government due to corruption controlling the country in this dark era..Hope the positive change will happen in Iraq, one day, and Iraqis will go back home to rebuild their country by their own hands,Amen..


Faiza Alaraji
Iraqi mother,
Civil Engineer
Blogger.
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