30 days around the world – a short report on our latest activities
The last month was a real challenge.
Starting from the end of February, we completed a real tour, marking visited places with a cross on the map.
The last weekend of February we were hosting Farhad – our friend, who during his first stay in Poland was collecting money with us in the Church of Christ the King in Rokietnica.
He asked for help and to remember about terrorism victims. It was a historical event – probably for the first time ever a representative of the Yazidi community spoke in a Polish church. His story moved many people. In August 2014, when ISIS attacked Sinjar, he fled with his sisters and cousin. During the runaway he barely escaped death. At the same time, he volunteered to go back to get medicines for his cousin’s son who got breathlessness attacks. He then got shot, the results of which he can feel to this day.
Later also we visited the Missionaries of the Holy Family in Złotów and the Salesians in Krakow, where we also collected funds for help in Iraq… and Egypt.
At the same time when we were carrying out fundraisings in churches, Bartek went to Egypt to familiarize himself with the situation of Christians who also became a target of fundamentalists’ attacks.
In 2015, 21 men were murdered on a Libyan beach by the ISIS terrorists. They were workers who came to Libya to earn money for their families. After their death, widows and children were left on their own.
Bartek also visited a church in Cairo, where 29 people were killed in an attack in 2016, and Alexandria, where 15 people were murdered. Egypt is not a tourist paradise anymore. During his trip, he was escorted everywhere by local police, which tries its best to protect very few tourists and visitors.
During Bartek’s stay in Egypt and shortly after he was back we supported three families that lost relatives in the attacks.
We helped, among others, a woman who lost her husband and nearly lost her home (if two simple rooms, one of which is occupied by her cow – her only property – can be called as such). We want to help the families of attacks carried out by ISIS in Egypt as their situation is catastrophic. Often they are left with no help whatsoever.
A few days after returning from Egypt Bartek went to Brussels to collect funds for terrorism victims.
At the same time we started restoring more workplaces in Iraq.
The list is long, but we are determined to make it happen. Another tailor’s shop as well as stationary and grocery shops were opened. Three other business are at the final stage of completion.
Every family is a different story.
I will share here one of them (I wrote about it on Facebook not a long time ago). It is a story of Faroq who for the last five years has been living with his wife and three children in the Kabarto camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. It was supposed to be a temporary shelter, just like all other camps spread around Kurdistan. It turned out to become a replacement for their real house, which lies in ruins.
In August 2014, Faroq’s family and others fled from Sinjar besieged by ISIS.
They spent 10 days in the mountains, in the heat, without food and with a minimal amount of water. They walked for another 10 days towards Iraqi Kurdistan, and finally arrived near Duhok.
In 2014, Faroq lost his sister as well as many friends and neighbors.
Several years earlier (on the 14th of August 2007) in the town of Til Ezer (or Qahtaniyah), in the second in terms of the number of victims terrorist attack after 9/11 in the world, his second sister was killed. At least 700 people were killed at the time (more according to some sources) and more than 1500 were injured. A small shop opened by volunteers from SCO will give Faroq a possibility to provide for himself and his family.
We spent the last weekend at the investment fairs in Krakow, where we had our stall enabling us to encourage people to support our activities. Is helping another human being a good investment in ourselves? I leave you to answer that one yourselves.