by Mahdi Abdullah Murad
AUI-S Voice Staff Reporter
http://www.auisvoice.org/
A group of AUI-S students, instructors and staff members visited the Qalawa camp for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) on November 23 to offer donations such as clothes, blankets and bags to the camp residents. The camp is populated by Arab families that fled violence in other parts of Iraq at the peak of the sectarian conflict in the country in the past few years.
The camp itself is dozens of ramshackle houses that have been erected over a large dirt field. Almost nine thousand families live in the camp. Public services are in a poor state. The sun-burned, rough-looking faces of the children and adults testify to the daily hardship of their lives.
The donations by AUI-S are part of a long-term project by the University to assist the camp’s residents. Some of the camp residents take part from time to time in free-of-charge language courses set up especially by the AUI-S for them.
The IDPs at the camp complained of their harsh living conditions and asked the organizations and the government to provide their basic needs.
“We are very tired of living here,” said Raja Buri, 35, from Baghdad, in Arabic. “We don’t have electricity, enough water and enough food. Despite our poverty, we need to buy everything. We can’t get anything for free here even water.”
Buri said that the AUI-S is the only institution that has helped the camp residents adding that the government and other organizations have not offered help.
“We need the government and other organizations offer the same sup- port that AUI-S offered. We are really in need of help,” she said.
But Jabar Muhamed Ali Faraj, who is the head of the refugee office in Sulaiamni, said that the government and other organizations have made donations to the camp several times.
“We have 8857 families who are refugees here in Sulaiamni,” Faraj said in Kurdish. “We, as the government representative always help these people. We are offering three tanks of water everyday. We provide security for these families. We offered oil to these families several times. We are doing our job to help these people as much as we can.”
Faraj added that he really appreciated AUI-S and hoped the University would continue its engagement with the IDPs in the future.
“We really thank AUI-S for offering such a great project,” said Faraj. “The efforts of AUI-S students, staff members and instructors really deserve to be appreciated because it is not the first time they help these families.”
The camp’s residents were also appreciative of AUI-S initiatives to help make their lives better.
“I really thank AUI-S,” said Basm Jabir, 40, from Baghdad, in Arabic. “AUI-S people helped us a lot by providing these goods. We really need help, and AUI-S did a humanitarian job in supporting us.”
The children of the refugees asked for school and court like any other kids in the city. Close to the Arab IDPs in Qalawa camp, there are a group of Kurds who appear to be IDPs too. They complain that they have not been offered the assistance that Arab families have received.
“AUI-S and the government came here many times to help the Arab families,” said Shadya Abdullah, 40, from Mosul, in Kurdish. “The government doesn’t provide anything for us as it does for the Arabs. Although we have been living here for 6 years, we don’t have enough place, electricity and water. No one is listening to us.”
But Faraj of the refugee office said the government cannot help these people because they are “gypsies.”
“These people are gypsies,” he added. “We can’t help them because their names are not in the list of those 8857 families whom we should help. These gypsies are not stable in a place. They keep moving from one place to another.”
Some of these refugees said that AUI-S should help and treat the same as those whom they live around them.
“I don’t know what is wrong with us,” said Muhammad Yunis, 77, who kept a distance from the line of people who were trying to receive AUI-s’ do- nations. “They just help those people again and again. They never help us.”
In order to find out more about AUI-S’s plans for engagement with the residents of the Qalawa camp, the Voice interviewed Rachel Laribee, the EWIPLI deputy adviser and project manager for donations to Qalawa refugee camp this semester.
As a project manager, how did you decide to manage this project?
What was so exciting about this project was that it wasn’t my idea, but the students who came up with the idea for this clothing drive. Mr. Geoffrey Gresk and I have been running an enrichment course that talks about Refugees and the many public health hand development issues that surround Refugee camps. Our wonderful students in this enrichment course dis- cussed the issues and decided that they wanted to find out what the long-term challenges are that surround the Qalawa camp. Now, after going to the camp and talking with the people there, we want to create a project that can address these issues. This clothing and blanket drive was just the first step in a year-long project for the camp.
Why did you choose Qalawa to deliver your support?
AUI-S has had a history of working with the Qalawa camp and we wanted to continue helping out this camp. We believed it was a good cause.
What was your strategy to collect money and other goods?
We made a flyer that we hung around campus. Students also talked about it in their classes and asked their families to donate clothes and money.
What were the goods that you decided to buy for the people?
We decided to buy new, thick blankets. We wanted to buy blankets because we knew they would be able to serve a lot of people, and unlike with clothes, they could work for every- one. We wouldn’t have to worry about sizes.
How much of the total money have you collected for the project?
We raised $950 US. We spent $800 US on new blankets (which allowed us to buy 50 blankets), and we have $150 remaining to help us with our next project.
Who really supported you in your project?
Several teachers came forward to donate some money. The rest came from AUI-S students and their families. I was really proud of the effort our students put into this project. The Student Affairs office was also great in their support and help for this project.
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