.New charities plant seeds of relief in Iraq
BAGHDAD In the wave of lawlessness and frantic self-interest that has washed over this war-weary nation, small acts of pure altruism often go unnoticed.
Like the tiny track suits and dresses that Najat al-Saiedi takes to children of displaced families in the dusty, desperate Shiite slum of Shoala. Or the shelter that Suad al-Khafaji gives to, among others, the five children she found living in a garage in northern Baghdad last year.
But the Iraqi government has been taking note of such good works, and now, more than three years after the American invasion, the outlines of a nascent civil society are taking shape.
Since 2003 the government has registered 5,000 private organizations, including charities, human rights groups, medical assistance agencies and literacy projects. Officials estimate that an additional 7,000 groups are working unofficially. The efforts show that even as violence and sectarian hatred tear Iraq's mixed cities apart, a growing number of Iraqis are trying to bring them together.
"Iraqis were thirsty for such experiences," said Khadija Tuma, director of the office in the Ministry of Civil Society Affairs that now works with the private aid groups. "It was as if they already had it inside themselves."
The new charity groups offer bits of relief in the sea of poverty that swept Iraq during the economic embargo of the 1990s and has worsened with the pervasive lawlessness that followed the American invasion.
The burst of public-spiritedness comes after long decades of muzzled community life under Saddam Hussein, when drab Soviet-style committees for youth, women and industrialists were the only community groups permitted.
Saddam stamped out what had been a vibrant public life. Since the founding of Islam in the seventh century, charity has had a special place in its societies. As far back as the 19th century, religious leaders, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, formed a network called Al Ashraf that was a link between people and the Ottoman-appointed governor of Baghdad.
The Iraqi Chamber of Commerce dates from the 1930s, and its volunteers plunged into Baghdad's poor areas to conduct literacy campaigns in the 1950s, around the time of the overthrow of the monarchy.
The groups today have picked up that historic thread and offer hope in an increasingly poisonous sectarian landscape that Iraqis may still be able to hold their country together.
Saiedi is a pragmatic 35-year-old who has neither a husband nor a job. After the American invasion she tried to find work at a cellphone company, one of the few types of private businesses that pay well, but was told that it was not hiring women because the job required travel. Boredom was part of her motivation: the risk of kidnapping has confined many women to their homes, and she had long hours at home with nothing to do.
So, together with a group of close friends and two of her sisters, Saiedi formed a charity group, Bilad al Rafidain (Mesopotamian) Orphan Relief.
Once a month she picks her way around mounds of trash in Shoala in dainty sandals, taking blankets, slippers and towels to children there. The members take donations from friends and co-workers, and even people who visit the government offices where several of them work, and regularly give assistance to 520 children.
"There are families of children where fathers were killed in explosions," said Saiedi, wearing a colorful green hijab on a recent day. "Now the state is busy. If I don't care about them, who will?"
Wassan al-Sharifi, 28, an office assistant for a government official, said she had joined the group because "I like the spirit of its members."
"In spite of this bad situation, they're willing to help people," she said.
One delivery early this month took Saiedi to Shoala, to the home of Dumoh Mizher, a 31-year old Shiite widow, one of the women who run a family of 15 children left fatherless after Mizher's husband and two of his brothers were killed in the town of Abu Ghraib in 2005, when Sunni Arab insurgents broke into their small shop and shot all three point-blank.
Children spilled through the doorway of the spare cinder-block house whose empty windows looked out onto a small pen with a goat. Framed photographs of the three dead men were set high on the wall, not far from portraits of Shiite saints.
"Who is who?" Saiedi asked, trying to calm the children down as they buzzed around her.
"Zaineb, where is Zaineb?" she asked, holding up a small pink dress wrapped in plastic.
Not all groups are a force for good. Tuma estimated that nearly 10 percent of the registered groups were involved in guerrilla activities and other crime. One was funneling aid to fighters in the volatile town of Falluja, she said, and the government shut it down. Another was running a ring that sold Iraqi children into slavery abroad. She reported that group to the prime minister.
Iraq's religion-based political parties also have a hand in supporting the charity groups. Khafaji, who founded Al Rahma (Mercy) Organization, her shelter for homeless women and children, in 2005, gets some of financing from an office of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
The need here is growing. The number of acutely malnourished children has more than doubled, to 9 percent in 2005 from 4 percent in 2002, according to a report based on figures from the Planning Ministry that was released this month.
Homelessness has spread since 2003 and accelerated with the rise of sectarian violence, with Iraqis even squatting in an old movie theater in central Baghdad, Khafaji said. The Ministry of Migration estimates that 1.1 million Iraqis have been displaced since 2003.
Khafaji, 49, a former shopping center manager, said she felt a personal connection to homeless Iraqis. In 1969, Saddam's government executed her father, and her family was forced from its property. She and her siblings were separated for their safety, and their belongings were sold off.
"This made me feel homeless," she said, sitting in a large room in a worn building in central Baghdad that houses about 20 women and children.
A visit to the shelter offers a tour of some of the miseries of poverty here.
The five children from the garage, ages 3 to 10, who were racing through the large concrete rooms of the building one day this month, squealing happily, are an example. Their mother was killed by their father's friend in a domestic fight after she refused to give him ice, according to an account the eldest daughter gave a shelter worker. Their father, a drug addict, later sold one of his kidneys to raise the money he needed so he could marry again, the worker said. Their father came to visit the children once, but has not returned, workers said.
In another case, a man came to the gate a month ago and tried to leave two children, a 1-year-old and an infant less than a month old. The shelter could not take them.
"So many victims," Khafaji said, raising her hands and opening her palms in a gesture of fatigue.
IHT
Like the tiny track suits and dresses that Najat al-Saiedi takes to children of displaced families in the dusty, desperate Shiite slum of Shoala. Or the shelter that Suad al-Khafaji gives to, among others, the five children she found living in a garage in northern Baghdad last year.
But the Iraqi government has been taking note of such good works, and now, more than three years after the American invasion, the outlines of a nascent civil society are taking shape.
Since 2003 the government has registered 5,000 private organizations, including charities, human rights groups, medical assistance agencies and literacy projects. Officials estimate that an additional 7,000 groups are working unofficially. The efforts show that even as violence and sectarian hatred tear Iraq's mixed cities apart, a growing number of Iraqis are trying to bring them together.
"Iraqis were thirsty for such experiences," said Khadija Tuma, director of the office in the Ministry of Civil Society Affairs that now works with the private aid groups. "It was as if they already had it inside themselves."
The new charity groups offer bits of relief in the sea of poverty that swept Iraq during the economic embargo of the 1990s and has worsened with the pervasive lawlessness that followed the American invasion.
The burst of public-spiritedness comes after long decades of muzzled community life under Saddam Hussein, when drab Soviet-style committees for youth, women and industrialists were the only community groups permitted.
Saddam stamped out what had been a vibrant public life. Since the founding of Islam in the seventh century, charity has had a special place in its societies. As far back as the 19th century, religious leaders, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, formed a network called Al Ashraf that was a link between people and the Ottoman-appointed governor of Baghdad.
The Iraqi Chamber of Commerce dates from the 1930s, and its volunteers plunged into Baghdad's poor areas to conduct literacy campaigns in the 1950s, around the time of the overthrow of the monarchy.
The groups today have picked up that historic thread and offer hope in an increasingly poisonous sectarian landscape that Iraqis may still be able to hold their country together.
Saiedi is a pragmatic 35-year-old who has neither a husband nor a job. After the American invasion she tried to find work at a cellphone company, one of the few types of private businesses that pay well, but was told that it was not hiring women because the job required travel. Boredom was part of her motivation: the risk of kidnapping has confined many women to their homes, and she had long hours at home with nothing to do.
So, together with a group of close friends and two of her sisters, Saiedi formed a charity group, Bilad al Rafidain (Mesopotamian) Orphan Relief.
Once a month she picks her way around mounds of trash in Shoala in dainty sandals, taking blankets, slippers and towels to children there. The members take donations from friends and co-workers, and even people who visit the government offices where several of them work, and regularly give assistance to 520 children.
"There are families of children where fathers were killed in explosions," said Saiedi, wearing a colorful green hijab on a recent day. "Now the state is busy. If I don't care about them, who will?"
Wassan al-Sharifi, 28, an office assistant for a government official, said she had joined the group because "I like the spirit of its members."
"In spite of this bad situation, they're willing to help people," she said.
One delivery early this month took Saiedi to Shoala, to the home of Dumoh Mizher, a 31-year old Shiite widow, one of the women who run a family of 15 children left fatherless after Mizher's husband and two of his brothers were killed in the town of Abu Ghraib in 2005, when Sunni Arab insurgents broke into their small shop and shot all three point-blank.
Children spilled through the doorway of the spare cinder-block house whose empty windows looked out onto a small pen with a goat. Framed photographs of the three dead men were set high on the wall, not far from portraits of Shiite saints.
"Who is who?" Saiedi asked, trying to calm the children down as they buzzed around her.
"Zaineb, where is Zaineb?" she asked, holding up a small pink dress wrapped in plastic.
Not all groups are a force for good. Tuma estimated that nearly 10 percent of the registered groups were involved in guerrilla activities and other crime. One was funneling aid to fighters in the volatile town of Falluja, she said, and the government shut it down. Another was running a ring that sold Iraqi children into slavery abroad. She reported that group to the prime minister.
Iraq's religion-based political parties also have a hand in supporting the charity groups. Khafaji, who founded Al Rahma (Mercy) Organization, her shelter for homeless women and children, in 2005, gets some of financing from an office of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
The need here is growing. The number of acutely malnourished children has more than doubled, to 9 percent in 2005 from 4 percent in 2002, according to a report based on figures from the Planning Ministry that was released this month.
Homelessness has spread since 2003 and accelerated with the rise of sectarian violence, with Iraqis even squatting in an old movie theater in central Baghdad, Khafaji said. The Ministry of Migration estimates that 1.1 million Iraqis have been displaced since 2003.
Khafaji, 49, a former shopping center manager, said she felt a personal connection to homeless Iraqis. In 1969, Saddam's government executed her father, and her family was forced from its property. She and her siblings were separated for their safety, and their belongings were sold off.
"This made me feel homeless," she said, sitting in a large room in a worn building in central Baghdad that houses about 20 women and children.
A visit to the shelter offers a tour of some of the miseries of poverty here.
The five children from the garage, ages 3 to 10, who were racing through the large concrete rooms of the building one day this month, squealing happily, are an example. Their mother was killed by their father's friend in a domestic fight after she refused to give him ice, according to an account the eldest daughter gave a shelter worker. Their father, a drug addict, later sold one of his kidneys to raise the money he needed so he could marry again, the worker said. Their father came to visit the children once, but has not returned, workers said.
In another case, a man came to the gate a month ago and tried to leave two children, a 1-year-old and an infant less than a month old. The shelter could not take them.
"So many victims," Khafaji said, raising her hands and opening her palms in a gesture of fatigue.
IHT
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