Something ends, something begins – The summary of our activities in 2019, part II

Jan 4, 2020 | Construction of houses, Great job, Stories of survivors

The first months of 2019 were not as impressive as the last quarter of the year.

Unfortunately, for every foundation the beginning of the year is a time of financial statements, reports and office work. In order to be able to organize a public fundraising in the next 12 months we need to fill in a special form and wait for its acceptance. Financial statements for funding include a pile of receipts, translations and tables. We need to go through all this in order to be able to continue our work of helping people.

I do not want to go into unnecessary details the paperwork. In the previous part of the summary I promised to recount specific projects which we have managed to implemented. I will start with the Good Job Project.

Great Job

I have written many times about the Great Job and how it works. Those of you who have not managed to familiarize themselves with all of our projects yet can find more information about it under this link.

In 2019 we opened 19 new workplaces, and three more are in progress. The newly-opened ones include, among others, 3 tailor shops, 4 hairdresser salons and 2 small grocery stores. Since 2017 we have managed to open 56 workplaces in total. We have divided them into 4 industries: services, trade, food, and renovation and construction.

We have to honestly acknowledge that one of the workplaces we opened in 2019 had to be shut down. It was a cosmetic store in Shariya, south of Duhok. It was run by two sisters whom we have known practically since the beginning of our presence in Iraq. Unfortunately, they did not have their own premises for running the business. With time the rent they needed to pay turned out to be too high, so they dropped it and moved the entire inventory to their acquaintance’s shop. Luckily, they relatively quickly managed to find employment. Sometimes independent circumstances can thwart one’s plans. That is life.

Other workplaces have been up and running well providing sufficient livelihood for most families that own them. It happens as well that after some time we need to provide an additional financial support to specific businesses. Conditions are changing and random events, such as illness, can turn everything upside down. Instead of closing a business, we try to help. Usually it is enough to help families get back on track.

The purchase of livestock

This has been our largest project to date. 180 families have received livestock together with nearly one tone of forage and newly-built crofts. They were provided to the residents of Sinjar, Bashiqi (on the Iraqi side), the wild camp in Khanke, and the village of Karnjook (in Kurdistan). The project was co-financed by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland (KPRM), hence its large scale.

The entire task was possible to complete thanks to cooperation with local organizations. Together with local builders they built the crofts, bought the animals and all the other required materials. You could follow the entire action from numerous reports and materials that we were publishing on a regular basis. The opinions of families that received such help are the best proof that the final result was quite satisfying.

Construction of houses in Sinjar

It is the second largest project that we completed in 2019. On the northern side of the Mount Sinjar we built 65 houses for families that wanted to go back to their homeland. The buildings were raised in small clusters enabling the reemergence of local communities.

The cost of building one such house was around 14,000 zlotys. For that amount an entire family was able to move into a new 42 square meters house. We were (and still are) the only foundation active in the region that completed such a project. We have proven it is possible. Now, we are impatiently waiting for others to follow in our footsteps.

Support for the Ourbridge center in Khanke

We managed to provide support for another year for the Ourbridge center for widows and orphans in Khanke. As a result, the number of students has reached nearly four hundred. Your contribution in this has been critical. The crowdfunding on Siepomaga.pl portal brings great results. We will be supporting the center next year as well knowing how valuable it has been for its pupils.

Support for the Oncology Center in JIN and other activities

There have been many cases when we have managed to aid individuals, families and even entire families that found themselves in difficult situation. It is worth to mention here two other electrification projects: the repair of a generator in the village of Avzrouk and the fragment of electrical grid in the village of Borek in the Sinjar Mountains.

The above-mentioned list of projects co-financed by the KPRM would be incomplete without mentioning the support for the Children Oncology Center in JIN in Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan. The center received a modern medical equipment including an ultrasound, a cardiac monitor and a vein finder.

We visited the JIN Center for the first time in May last year. After a conversation with the deputy director we found out that the center was lacking equipment for basic diagnosis of cancer treatment. There were situations in the past when parents needed to take their children to other hospitals for basic checkups (in the summer when temperature often reaches 50°C it was a great burden for ill children). Parents with their own cars would drive them themselves. Others needed to hire taxis, since there is no ambulance in the center.

During the equipment handover ceremony Poland was represented by the Consul Dominik Musial and Vice-consul Stanislav Gulinski from the consulate in Erbil. Our foundation was represented by Ramy Khlka, the president of the Gilgamesh Organization with which we have been cooperating for more than two years. The event was reported in the entire region. The local media were present and described the whole action very positively. It is worth adding that 1/3 of children treated in the center in Duhok come from refugee families from Syria and other regions of Iraq and Kurdistan. It is the only hospital with children oncology department in the entire province.

In conclusion

These are merely the most important of the projects completed (or ongoing) in 2019. Many have not been mentioned, and those mentioned have not been described at length. I have highlighted as much as possible, hoping that articles which I prepare for you can at least to some extent paint a picture of the needs of terrorism victims and the importance of our activities. We will be continuing our mission next year. We want to become more active on social media which enable us to reach people who could help thousands return to normal lives.

I invite you to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube. Every engagement helps to create new materials and builds a growing community of people with a common purpose: to give hope.

All the best for the New Year.