Look through our windows :D

Stuck home for couple of days due to a heavy snow session:D look how beautiful the photos are! :)

4.5 millions Orphans in Iraq, a tragic situation

Baghdad,Voices of Iraq – (VOI). New reports of Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs released in 16 January, 2008 with new disaster numbers of children situation in Iraq. This report was declare that in Iraq now 4.5 millions Iraqi orphans with 500 000 living in streets without any home or family care about thier, as well as there are only 459 orphans in governmental houses of orphans.

The dramatic facts in this report also, there are 800 Iraqi orphans in American Iraqi prisons until January 2008 (700 orphans in Iraqi prisons and 100 another orphans in American prisons.

In a Baghdadi popular market, Mustafa Fadhil, a ten year old child, sits waiting to carry the items purchased by individuals who are out doing their shopping, for some trivial income that he needs to help his family following his father’s death who was a victim of the violence in Iraq.
From time to time, Mustafa imagines himself back again in classroom; a dream that disappears when a customer, looking for a carrier, calls him “I left school and started working when my father was killed in a mortar attack that targeted our house around two years ago, and I have been responsible for my family since then,” Mustafa said to Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).
In an attempt to depend on himself in order for himself and his family to survive under such severe circumstances, Mustafa limits his plans to the requirements of daily life. “I stopped thinking about my future, and what I would be when I get older.”

There are many children like Mustafa, orphans and street-kids that live a current tragic reality in Iraq, with an unknown future awaiting them, especially when considering that there are no pre-existing legislations or decrees that protect them and their rights.

The statistics of the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development Coordination show that there are 4.5 million orphans in Iraq, 500 thousand of them living in the streets.
At one of the intersections of Al-Karada, a Shiite neighborhood in downtown Baghdad – the capital of Iraq, Nassir Saadon, a 14 years old teenager, sells candy. “I live in a tragic situation and poverty, because my parents were divorced around two years ago,” adding, “I chose to sell candy because it is a job that doesn’t require a large amount of money, but the income is hardly enough to feed me. I feel that my future is unknown; if I even have a future.”

The Islamic Foundation of Woman and Child, a non-governmental organization, believes that with the current tragic circumstances of children in Iraq, a generation will grow up cultivated in an atmosphere of rebellious violence. Amal Kashefal-Ghetaa, the president of that foundation, explained that “Due to the current situation, a massive change took place in the lives of children that forced many of them to leave their schools and friends to go to work; a matter that affects them mentally.”

The Iraqi government, according to Kashefal-Ghetaa, “is not sponsoring those children, despite the fact that the social component representing them is getting wider, because of the violence in Iraq;” demanding the legislation of laws that sponsor these children.

The Iraqi Parliamentary Committee of Woman and Child have a pessimistic vision regarding the future of children in Iraq. Naddera Aif, a parliamentary member of this committee and affiliated with the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) told VOI “I have a pessimistic vision regarding the future of families in Iraq, due to the current violence, displacement, poverty, and family fragmentation. There are 4.5 million orphans, in addition to 800 children in prisons, 700 of them in the Iraqi detentions, and the rest in American custody, all accused of terror or issuing false statements.”

According to Aif, the Parliamentary Committee of Woman and Child recently suggested a number of laws in that regard, such as the laws of Orphans Fund, The Childhood Fund, and the Organization of Childhood Sponsorship, “These laws represent a temporary solution that will be discussed by the Iraqi parliament in this year,” Aif said without further details.

The Orphanages Department at the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs considers that childhood in Iraq suffers the loss of rights comparing with their counterparts in the neighboring countries. “Kids in Iraq are deprived of health care in schools, playing with their friends, and the right to self-expression,” Abeer Al-Chalabi, the manager of that department said to VOI, adding that many children in Iraq are subjected to sexual harassment, some of them are conducting hard jobs unsuitable to their ages, and others use begging to earn their living.

In Iraq, as al-Chalabi confirmed, there are 18 orphanages, 4 in Baghdad, and the rest are distributed throughout other provinces. The total number of orphans in all these orphanages is 459.

The sociologist, Atheer Kareem, told VOI that the negative situation that children in Iraq are experiencing will increase their suffering, unless the government in Iraq responds by issuing legislations that sponsors them and protects their rights. “Violence and bloodshed will have negative mental effects on kids, and their personality, and it would be difficult for a generation to grow up in a healthy manner without the required environments.” [Source]

Meen Irhabi!

And who said you have to wait for diplomacy to solve it?:D

It All Started In Their Hearts..

The Darkness, it all started in their hearts. And then to Gazza it marched, to wrap everything with cruelty and coldness. The houses and the children, and the weeping mothers that just lost their childredn in yesterday's attack. Darkness and silence, carried their wails throughout the streets, to echo throughout the world.

From their hearts it all started, then fountained out, as racism and hate, as collective punishment.

Watch it here.

Ron Paul, what do you think of him?!

CRP...not anymore

Dear Everyone: Due to personal reasons, Faiza Alaraji and myself are no longer related to the Collateral Repair Project.

We don't know the people that are working on it currently in Jordan, and hence we don't guarantee the integrity or effiency of the project anymore.

HOWEVER, we as a family still carry on our projects in supporting the Iraqi refugees families in Jordan and Syria as well as the IDPs inside Iraq, like we have been doing for years now, you can always contact us for more details.

End of the press release :)