THE MAIN TASK: ERADICATE THE WAITING LIST
There are untold thousands of children in Iraq today suffering from heart disease that threatens to take their little lives if they do not receive surgery outside the country. And time is running out because years of war and corruption have led to a health care system that is entirely ill-equipped to handle the enormity of the task.
Congenital Heart Disease
For many Iraqi children heart diseases begins in utero. In a country like Iraq, these are some of the hardest diseases to understand because the contributing factors are not always identifiable until it is far too late. Though it remains a topic of great speculation, experts have hypothesized that Saddam Hussein’s 281 chemical attacks on the Kurds of northern Iraq are a contributing factor to congenital heart disease in many today. Malnutrition is cited by local experts as another suspect. Intra-family marriage is still practiced by many today and probably contributes to the prevalence of these diseases.
Current Measures Being Undertaken
The great news lies in how much is actually being done by a small coalition of organizations to address the prevalence of congenital heart disease in Iraq. Children have been treated in the United States, Italy, Austria, Jordan, Israel, Iran, and in Istanbul, Turkey through PLC’s partnership with the world class Anadolu Sağlık Merkezi (ASM). In addition to the surgeries outside the country PLC is working with Turkish and American doctors to train local Iraqi teams for the future - so that once the facilities are ready Iraqi doctors and nurses are better equipped to begin handling these cases themselves.
PLC WORKS AMONG COMMUNITIES AT ODDS
The divide between Sunni and Shia from Iraq to Iran and beyond is not going away anytime soon, especially with the continual export of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabbi brand of Islam. But that does not mean that significant efforts should not be pursued toward greater understanding, respect, and reconciliation between these historically divided co-religionists.
PLC sees every surgery as an opportunity for greater collaboration and conversation between Sunnis and Shiites in the region. We broker opportunities for Shiites & Sunnis to serve one another as they work through the logistics of funding and facilitating a surgery. And because we love these people, we are not like so many spy agency overseers who fail to understand the fundamental grievances between these communities at odds. That’s why we use surgeries to help each small group celebrate their cooperation with the other.
More than the Evening News
The people of the Middle East have been fighting each other for centuries on end. But Western empires have often exacerbated what were already historic struggles with our intrusive ways and coveting of their natural resources. Unfortunately, we have not been taught very well about our role in their perpetual conflict through our usual media outlets. PLC wants to show you more about the people of the Middle East than you might usually see on the evening news.
Cooperation Between Kurds & Arabs
Under Saddam Hussein, a pan-Arabist movement called Ba’athism led to the annihilation of hundreds of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq. Kurds disappeared in the night. Five thousand Kurds died in the city of Halabja on March 16-17, 1988 when Saddam Hussein gassed the city.
Understandably, those wounds are still fresh and peacemaking is slow. But we at PLC are committed to using our days in this land to promote reconciliation and peace between communities at odds. We do this by serving both Kurds and Arabs; by sending them to surgery together and by celebrating their children together. We do this by mobilizing Kurds and Arabs toward local solutions to these local problems.
LASTING PEACE COMES WITH SECURITY AND CHARITY
We have great appreciation for the bravery of our soldiers as they protect the world from terrorist activity. But there are some things our soldiers cannot solve. The most recent sixty years of armed-conflict in the Middle East should have taught us that lasting peace will not be made with guns and warships alone. The threat of violence is helpful for maintaining order; but lasting peace requires non-military solutions, as well.
We Are Here on the Ground
PLC sees each surgery as an opportunity to build on the ground laid by our soldiers in our collaborative effort to create a better future for Iraq and its neighbors. For our part, this is best achieved by actively placing our unarmed lives alongside those who are suffering. We don’t launch solutions from boardrooms across the ocean. We’re on the ground. And we followthrough. Children are not notches in our belt, cast aside after we update the annual report. We think meticulously about how to best carry on with these families, instilling hope and love for the long-haul.
Post-Op Followthrough
After PLC kids come back from surgery outside the country, most of them are able to journey on with PLC receiving a range of help from medical care and rehabilitation to social reintegration and counseling. Our Followthrough support groups give parents the ongoing camaraderie of those with shared experiences and challenges - an idea that is completely new in these communities.
When you give to a child’s surgery through the Preemptive Love Coalition, you not only give to a medical operation, you are giving to a comprehensive, human-scale peacemaking effort focused at the ethnic, religious, an inter-national divides that are so prevalent in Iraq today. You are giving to the future stability and security of the world. Donate Now!
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