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Our Home.doc
Friends,
When I walked into the boy’s room Hassain was sitting on the floor playing with leggo, the sun shining through the window onto his face. Ahmed was beside him drawing pictures on a big pad with coloured textas.
The sight made me stop and smile.
I smiled because the first time I saw Ahmed he was playing with pieces of razor wire which surround the filthy squat where he used to live. The first time I saw Ahmed he was shuddering with cold, his big brown eyes wide with fear as he wandered the street late at night.
Ahmed is 11, Hassain is 9.
These two boys are now living in a shelter set up by Our Home – Iraq.
I smiled because I was happy to see them doing what little boys should be doing – playing with Lego and drawing pictures!
For some reason or another they were living on the streets of central Baghdad along with many other children.
The team from Our Home – made up of seven international volunteers and several local Iraqis - have been working with the boys these last few weeks and the results have been fantastic.
(Note: It seems that in this area of central Baghdad the homeless girls who were here have been taken off the street into mosques and orphanages. This is good news! But we are following this up and will investigate if there are still any homeless girls in other areas of Baghdad.)
The work with the street boys started by visiting a large group that had set up a squat in the basement of a burnt out building. You walk through mud and rubbish to get to the entrance of the squat and then through more mud and rubbish to a large concrete room, completely bare, where they sleep. Nearby is another concrete room used as a communal toilet, which ensures a heavy stench fills the place all day.
The Our Home team became friends with the street boys by visiting them each day and bringing food. Over time they won the trust of the boys some of whom had become pretty hard-core. Most of them had started sniffing glue and solvents. This resulted in them acting out and becoming violent between themselves and towards others, which meant they were always getting themselves into trouble.
One day everyone agreed that they needed a good wash, so to the dismay of a local hotel manager, we booked a few hotel rooms so they could have showers.
Next came some new clothes. Most of them had only one set of filthy old clothes, many no shoes. So they were thrilled when new clothes came just in time for Eid (the celebration at the end of Ramadan) They were quite proud of their smart, new look.
Then came an invitation: Who would like to come off the street and live in a house? The condition being no more sniffing and no violent behaviour.
Eight boys immediately jumped at the opportunity.
With the help of our Iraqi friends we found a large building down a busy street with many empty rooms. We told the landlord Jaifa, of our plans and he agreed to help. He is a very kind man and, like so many Iraqi’s in the neighbourhood, he is keen to help the children come off the street and straighten up.
So for a small cost we’ve rented rooms in the house and Jaiffa also provides food for the children which they cook themselves.
We’ve brought in beds, mattresses, couches and the place is starting to feel like a home.
Word has passed around the street so we often have new boys just turning up at the door asking for a bed. We now we have 20 boys in the house aged from 9 to 19.
They are cheeky, adorable little rascals who have stolen our hearts.
It is great to see them well dressed, fed and warm at night, but the best thing to see is their transformed behaviour.
Because they have stopped sniffing their eyes have cleared, their faces have brightened, they have a spring in their step and they are able to engage and relate well to others.
It seems like they have come alive again.
It’s amazing what a bit of love, care and attention can do!
We have employed a youth worker who will manage their day-to-day affairs and a teacher who is working with the ones who want to learn new skills.
It is a joy to be at the house and have the boys suffocate us with smiles, hugs and kisses. They are constantly giving us love and affection but they are also demanding little rascals at times. They fight between themselves, sulk and break things - its heartening to see that they are still little boys!
This house is a ramshackle old dump in a rough part of town. We believe this is part of its success – the other groups who have tried to help the boys have not been successful because they wanted to take them out to the suburbs away from their networks. But we do want to open another more permanent house for the boys who are ready to settle down in a nice house in a safer, inner city suburb.
We have also been helping poor families, meeting with local groups and supporting local initiatives. But the task is enormous and there is still a lot of work to do.
Thanks to everyone out there who has helped ‘Our Home’ become a reality.
The kids and I say 'shukran,' thankyou!
Love your pilgrim
Donna
PS: Soon I will introduce a few of the boys and tell their stories.
PPS: The work is very demanding and tiring and some of us are sick (including me with a bad flu!) There are many challenges, so please keep us in your prayers.
PPPS: "Evil triumphs while good people do nothing" (who said that?)
Change of date and venue
The charity dinner, presentation and auction is now on
Monday October 20, 7.30pm
at
Anam's Restaurant, Great Horton Road, Bradford
As before, tickets are £10 from 0776 686 1373
Donations should be sent to Lloyds TSB, Sort code 30-97-07, Account no. 00723748
Account name: Our Home-Iraq
Please call if you have items suitable for the auction which you wish to donate.
Our Home - Iraq bank account
We have now set up a bank account.
Please send donations to:
Lloyds TSB Sort code: 30-97-07
Account Name: Our Home- Iraq
Account no. 00723748
Our Home - Iraq benefit, October 23
Advance notice
Street Kids' benefit in Bradford, October 23
We are organising a benefit dinner, with auction, music, eye-witness accounts, and gourmet food, at
Carlisle Business Centre, Carlisle Road, Bradford BD8 on
Thursday October 23, 7.30pm-11pm
Make a note in your diary!
Fuller details later.
Bagdhad’s street children need your help
Uzma Bashir & Rory McEwan report on the dire situation of children in a city under occupation
BAGHDAD, September 24, 2003
Today Iraq lies in ruins. The city centre of Baghdad, its once prosperous capital, is haunted today by thousands of street children, who sleep under hedges and bridges and eke out a living, begging from Westerners, soldiers, journalists and members of the non-governmental relief organisations with a presence in the city. In the ground floor restaurants, every meal attracts a crowd of kids who press their faces against the glass in a mute appeal for food.
Here are just two of their stories, which could be multiplied a thousandfold:
Ziman, 12, pretends to be a boy
Ziman is 12 years old. She usually sleeps on the traffic island by the checkpoint in front of the Sheraton and Palestine hotels. She keeps her hair cropped short to look as much like a boy as possible. Like most of the street kids, she lives in terror of the thieves, rapists and paedophiles who prey on the children after dark.
Her earliest memories are of being taken from an orphanage by a man who claimed to be her father. After his wife had a child of their own, they told Ziman she was not their child, and sent her out to beg. Her arms are scarred with burns from the days she did not earn enough. She ran away and has been living on the streets ever since.
Once she was taken to a Hawza “House of Mercy” where she was given a drug which made her sleepy. The head man showed the children pornographic videos, and one night she woke up naked. She says she does not know if anything happened.
She has many stories about men and older street kids hitting her, knocking her down and trying to “do things” to her.
Zeinab, old before her time
Zeinab is perhaps 16 or 17, but could pass for twenty years older. Most of the time she can be found in a near stupor from glue sniffing. In more lucid moments she will discuss her two babies, who died when she “dropped them in the street”. Having revealed this much, she retreats into herself, wrapping her arms tight around her shoulders, rocking and moaning. Trying to discuss her earlier life brings the same response.
Before the war needy children were housed in a number of orphanages and care homes, most supported by the state, some by mosques. During the invasion, many of the children ran away. Most never went back. Add to these the numbers orphaned by the war and the relatively small number sent out to beg by families with no other means of support. These most vulnerable residents of the city have become the prey of organised and powerful criminal gangs.
Rumours abound of these gangs kidnapping children for sale to Saudi and other oil-rich states. One such ring was broken up recently, but others continue to operate. The kids on the street are raided nightly by thieves, rejected and despised by their highly conservative society. So their “liberation” is complete.
Drug abuse was a very minor social problem before the war, but it is catching on fast. Glue or solvent abuse is almost universal among the street children. Some of the older boys have been seen with bags of pills, which appear to be some kind of amphetamine.
Enfants du Monde, a French relief organisation which has been operating in Baghdad for about three months, had planned to open a night shelter. After objections from the funding body, UNICEF, this was changed to a drop-in centre, where children are fed, bathed and turned out at night but Enfants du Monde does plan to open a 24-hour shelter in the near future, which is a clear social need.
We have been here through the war and the invasion. We have seen the battlefields, the hospitals, the human cost of war, but for all of us, working with these children has been a turning point. Listening to, recording the horror stories that their lives have become and then sending them back onto the street is not something we can do.
But to give these street kids a permanent refuge requires money.
We plan to start by opening a house in Baghdad for a few of these children. If we can raise the cash we can offer them the most basic support, food, a roof over their heads, some security, but most of these kids need more than that. We are looking for people with experience of working with street kids and/or abused children to save these children from the consequences of the occupation.
We have volunteers who are willing to go, despite the dangerous situation in which westerners working there face injury or death.
And, of course, we need money. Please make a donation now so we can start this valuable work. Better still, you could set up a monthly standing order with your bank or building society. All the money raised will be used directly on premises rent, food, security and expenses for staff.
Please make cheques payable to:
Our Home-Iraq
and send to
23 Warwick Way
Croxley Green
Rickmansworth, Herts
WD3 3SB
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