Indy Goes to the Middle East

Iraqi Refgees

The day before yesterday, we visited the Jesuit center and I realized how much I did not know. There were many women in their early 20s who were fashionably dressed and attractive. Their nails were done, their hair was freshly cut, many of they wore high heels . It was hard to believe that they were refugees. Their appearance brought what they were going through closer to home. These are everyday people who until a few months or years ago were in University finishing their engineering degrees, updating their status on Facebook, living a normal, peaceful lifes until the war began. The war is as surprising and shocking to them as it is to us. They are the people that have to deal with the consequences, not us. What they want most and were asking us for was stability and security. The process of gaining citizenship is extremely difficult. Many of them are unemployed and are basically living in limbo. Seeing them and listening to their stories made me realize what they real consequences of war are. I consider myself to be fairly well exposed because of my experience to hardship and poverty in Africa, but nothing prepared me for this. I was in a state of shock. I understood how humiliating it must have been for these people to ask complete strangers for help. Their long term needs are relocation. I did not know what to tell these people, it was a very rude awakening because all I understood about war in general was what we study in class. The Middle East was always something very abstract to me until we spent an evening with them having dinner together. At the dinner table. I was not sure what appropriate conversation would be, fortunately I was advised to listen and from other conversations, most refugees just want people to listen.

How we can help

We spoke to a young doctor who connected with Charlie. Immediate needs that can be served would be through raising money or getting donations for medication in general. There is also a child that needs medication for his stunted growth-his mother cannot afford the monthly injections needed for her child. The young doctor we met said that the refugees need to build a clinic and hire some staff which can be done provided that the money is raised.