1: What are you trying to accomplish?
2: What's your evidence that you can accomplish it?
3: How is it possible that you can provide an open heart surgery in Iraq for less than $1,000? Is that the full cost?
4: So is that the same thing as saying that my donation doesn't really make a difference? That the "up to 85%" funded locally by those inside Iraq is all that is really necessary to make this work?
5: Any other costs?
6: What is the bottleneck to more surgeries: money or skilled labor?
7: I'm skeptical of non-profits and charities because they always seem to be asking for more money. How can I be sure that Preemptive Love Coalition has "room for more funding" and that I'm not paying into a huge savings account, "Rainy Day Fund", or something similar?
8: Do you have enough volunteer surgeons available for unfunded Remedy Missions? (i.e., are there trips that you could fund if you had more money, or is there a labor bottleneck?)
9: Many heart surgeries require follow-up treatment (including additional surgeries). Do you have a way of providing these to patients?
10: How do you assess whether surgeries are completed competently and appropriately?
11: What is the rate of complications during and following surgery?
12: How do you assess whether surgeons are performing additional surgeries that they would have not had the funding or motivation to perform otherwise?
13: How do you assess whether surgeons are charging their patients for the surgeries you fund?
14: Do you follow up with the surgeons you've trained to assess whether they are correctly applying their training?
15: What information is available on the activities - and competence - of the surgeons you've trained?
16: Where do surgeons work after completing training? Do they serve poor patients?
17: How much do you spend each year on "program" expenses and how much on "overhead?"


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 Q: What are you trying to accomplish?

A: Train Iraqi heart surgeons and nurses so they can eradicate the backlog of tens of thousands of Iraqi children waiting in line for lifesaving heart surgery. [Back to Top]

 Q: What's your evidence that you can accomplish it?

A: Each year we continue to increase Iraq's total number of pediatric cardiac surgeries with new surgeries in Iraqi centers that would not - indeed could not - have been accomplished otherwise. Ministry of Health (MOH) officials speculate 500 surgeries were accomplished in 2009 (of which we provided 23 - 4.6% - outside the country). The addition of our 82 surgeries in FY 2010 - to the 500 baseline - for a total of 582 approximated surgeries, represents an increase created by PLC of 14% over 2009. In FY 2011 we anticipate increasing Iraq's total number of pediatric cardiac surgeries to at least 719 (or another 19% over FY 2010 directly attributable to our surgeons and our training).

Each year the local teams with which we work will become more proficient, and each year they will independently take on a larger case load than they could have the year before. None of these figures yet account for that additional output.

In March 2010 the Iraqi Ministry of Health asked us to expand our work to three additional sites. In May 2010 we began additional discussions about establishing a fellowship program in which international surgeons and nurses would take up residence in the Iraqi system to train locally for 40 weeks out of the year.

Our model does not rely strictly on volunteers because the level of need in Iraq outstrips what we could reasonably supply through volunteer labor alone. Accordingly, we set our budgets so as to actually contract the international surgical and nursing staff we need to accomplish our mission.

Sure, this increases the cost-per-mission (and thereby, cost-per-child) over early "mission" models in which volunteerism was idealized and training was not necessarily prioritized. But our contract labor + volunteerism model is inarguably the only way to create a nationwide quarterly training program and fellowships inside Iraq with international experts across approximately 6-8 surgical sites. Moreover, our model does not face the same sluggishness of learning that other surgery organizations suffer because we do not have the same rates of turnover; we have incredible consistency across our programs and missions. [Back to Top]

 Q: How is it possible that you can provide an open heart surgery in Iraq for less than $1,000? Is that the full cost?

A: The "less than $1k" numbers we routinely publish represent the amount in "program costs" we spend from our international donor money. The figure does not necessarily account for every single management, overhead, or fundraising expense.

Our total expenditures for FY 2010 were $188,919. We performed 82 surgeries during the same period for a per child total of $2,304 (though this data is a bit moot moving into 2010-11 as we abandon our very expensive "surgery exports" program(s) in Turkey, etc. and focus henceforth on more cost-effective in-country surgeries alone).

When all of our Remedy Mission partners are taken into consideration - including the Iraqi Government, medical companies that donate medicines and supplies, and local organizations - the real Remedy Mission cost to all donors is in the range of $5,400 - $7,000. Put another way, up to 85% of the total cost of a single surgical/training mission is now subsidized by local, Iraqi constituent institutions. [Back to Top]

 Q: So is that the same thing as saying that my donation doesn't really make a difference? That the "up to 85%" funded locally by those inside Iraq is all that is really necessary to make this work?

A: There is not a single site across Iraq for which our Remedy Missions are fully funded. If we fail to provide our 15-19% of the overall budget, Remedy Missions fail, surgeons and nurses do not get trained regularly, on-site audits from our international team do not happen, up to 20 children are delayed from receiving surgery, and a few may even die or become inoperable. Your role in funding the remaining 15-19% is as critical in the short term as any other entity. A single Remedy Mission is binary - it either happens or it doesn't. Your money makes it happen. But our goal is to continue to graduate all our programs so they are 100% funded locally in the next 5-10 years. [Back to Top]

 Q: Any other costs?

A: Our numbers per Remedy Mission do not account for "indirect costs," such as the cost (or value) of our volunteer medical staff from around the world, costs to local healthcare systems, the cost of a family to travel to the surgery site, the opportunity costs of lost income for families as they wait for surgery, etc. The reason we think it's important to note this here is because lifesaving is actually quite difficult. Building a pediatric cardiac surgery system for the entire country of Iraq is laborious and full of complexities. [Back to Top]

 Q: What is the bottleneck to more surgeries: money or skilled labor?

A: People often assume that the biggest need is more Iraqi heart surgeons. We could use a few more, but the real bottleneck is skilled nurses, technicians, and non-surgical physicians. A surgeon is only as good as his support staff. One of our biggest challenges is training pediatric cardiac intensive care nurses. To date, we haven't found a better model than our Remedy Missions through which we bring quarterly hands-on training to local nurses (and surgeons) in Iraq. Rather than exporting the nurses to Europe or the USA for training (whose medical systems barely resemble the Iraqi system), we train them with what they have on hand in their local environment. [Back to Top]

 Q: I'm skeptical of non-profits and charities because they always seem to be asking for more money. How can I be sure that Preemptive Love Coalition has "room for more funding" and that I'm not paying into a huge savings account, "Rainy Day Fund", or something similar?

A: For the record, we are skeptical of non-profits as well! In 2012 PLC needs $350,000 on hand at any given time to cover our cash flow needs for up to three Remedy Missions per quarter. We are still 30% under-funded against that goal. In addition to cash flow needs, we still require 15-19% funding on most of our missions after local sources contribute their portion; we have un-funded pilot programs in new cities where local doctors have been requesting our help (but where weve yet to woo local philanthropists or health directors); and we have research and social service initiatives through our Followthrough program that require funding at present because we have not yet sought local funding for those initiatives (seeing as how they relate mostly to our Monitoring & Impact Evaluation objectives). Please see our "Funding Gap" page to look deeper into our anticipated program costs, the sources of funding we are counting on, and the funding gap between the two for the next few years. [Back to Top]

 Q: Do you have enough volunteer surgeons available for unfunded Remedy Missions? (i.e., are there trips that you could fund if you had more money, or is there a labor bottleneck?)

A: Great question! We use a hybrid volunteer/staff model. Roughly 25-30% of any one of our Remedy Mission teams is employed by the International Children's Heart Foundation (typically the surgeon, scrub nurse, anesthesiologist, ICU doctor, and often a part-time ICU nurse). The remainder of the team typically comprises volunteer physicians, technicians, and nurses from across the world. Because the hardest-to-come-by positions are contract labor for us and NOT volunteers, we have never failed to run a mission for lack of personnel. We have only cancelled or turned down a request for a future mission due to lack of funding. [Back to Top]

 Q: Many heart surgeries require follow-up treatment (including additional surgeries). Do you have a way of providing these to patients?

A: Yes, we do. Our model dictates quarterly visits to each program site (a hospital inside a regional hub). Our reliance on local cardiologists ensures that the local team prioritizes and almost entirely sets the agenda for patient selection (within a development curricula) - after all, Iraqi doctors are the ones who are most intimately connected to the patients and their daily progress! When a local cardiologist sees a child who has either (1) deteriorated and requires another intervention or (2) advanced as expected to the next step of a complex, staged intervention, the child is prioritized for follow-up treatment. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeries are completed competently and appropriately?

A: Because we are a broker and play a combination administrative and financier role in the coalition of partners working in Iraq to develop pediatric cardiac care, we are able to stand in-between the local surgical team and the international surgical team (whom we contract as a third-party to train and perform surgeries in Iraq). If the local team or health directorate suspects a lack of competence in the international team, a cavalier attitude, or a single poor judgement call, our role is to be the go-between - to be the advocate for the local healthcare providers vis-a-vis the international surgical team.

Similarly, if the international surgical team feels pushed by the local surgical team to perform procedures with which they are uncomfortable or for which they think the local system is ill-prepared, they are able to refuse children for surgery and/or use us (PLC) as a go-between.

The checks-and-balance between the two teams helps us ensure surgeries are performed in a competent, appropriate manner. [Back to Top]

 Q: What is the rate of complications during and following surgery?

A: We report our in-hospital and 60-day mortality after each Remedy Mission. You can finds those numbers here. We also produce reports after each Remedy Mission detailing the trip, including data on intraoperative complications, post-operative complications, and mortality. You can find those reports here. We are also deliberately raising the funds necessary to help us bring our various heart hospitals into compliance with the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Surgery in Developing Countries. If this kind of quality improvement and reporting initiative interests you, we are currently looking for financial partners for our Followthrough program. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeons are performing additional surgeries that they would have not had the funding or motivation to perform otherwise?

A: Pediatric heart surgery in Iraq is almost nonexistent without our work. There are two active programs for relatively simple surgeries (one in Erbil and one in Baghdad). Local surgeons claim that combined they perform no more than a few hundred pediatric surgeries a year. In every location where we work, pediatric heart surgery is effectively nonexistent. Therefore, every surgery performed at our program sites (both when we are present and when we are not) are "additional surgeries" that they would not have had the SKILL to perform without the FUNDING we employed to train them in their local environment. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeons are charging their patients for the surgeries you fund?

A: Because we work in public (government) hospitals - and because healthcare in Iraq is provided almost entirely free of charge - it is widely known that any cardiologist, surgeon, or administrator seeking compensation for services is acting outside of Iraqi law. [Back to Top]

 Q: Do you follow up with the surgeons you've trained to assess whether they are correctly applying their training?

A: We see them quarterly in their local environment and perform real-time audits of their skills, recollection of past training, application of new techniques, etc. Additionally, our international surgeon remains on call at any time via phone, Skype, or email for consultation. [Back to Top]

 Q: What information is available on the activities - and competence - of the surgeons you've trained?

A: Because our Remedy Mission training program only began in late 2010 - and pediatric heart surgery at our sites across Iraq is the same age - there is still relatively little independent practice to report, and therefore little data on the activities and competence of our surgeons and their teams. But as they begin performing more surgeries independently, we are trying to align each site/surgical team with the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Surgery in Developing Countries (a data collection and tracking initiative of Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard University). [Back to Top]

 Q: Where do surgeons work after completing training? Do they serve poor patients?

A: As of Q2 2011 there was only one private hospital in Iraq (to our knowledge) providing pediatric heart surgery (and those surgeries were on the lower end of the complexity scale). Our work does not necessarily mean to exclude private hospitals as they continue to come online and become viable options, but at present the government system has a better equipped foundation for training local surgical teams. As we look to fully graduate our local surgical teams in the next 5-10 years, we imagine that most of them will stay in the public sector for all of the stability, pensions, and benefits of loyalty provided to those who stick with it. But, undoubtedly, some will seek positions at private hospitals (assuming private hospitals are willing to invest in the requisite capital purchases necessary to establish a credible program). In the public sector, rich and poor are served alike. In the private sector, poorer patients would be at an obvious disadvantage. [Back to Top]

 Q: How much do you spend each year on "program" expenses and how much on "overhead?"

A: As a rule, we do not adhere to the model that claims that "overhead" is somehow bad and "program" is somehow good. There are very bad program expenses. There are overhead expenses that are excellent investments. We agree with Paul Brest, President of the Hewlett Foundation, when he said, "Achieving a low overhead ratio drives many charities to behaviors that make them less effective and means more, not less, wasted dollars." Therefore, we spend as much on overhead as we need to accomplish our mission. The mission itself is our North Star - not arbitrary (even harmful) standards about overhead-vs-program expenditures. For the record, however, you can find a current pie chart of our expenditures here (and if you're into that sort of thing, you'll probably be impressed!). [Back to Top]

Jeremy Courtney Founder, Executive Director Twitter: @Jeremy_Courtney

“I'd love to hear any critique or questions you might have!”

DROP A NOTE OR DONATION BY MAIL: Preemptive Love Coalition 1300 Darbyton Dr. Hewitt, TX 76643 GIVE BY PHONE: To make a gift over the phone, using your credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover), please call +1 (806) 853-9131 during normal business hours. IRAQ OFFICE: +964 770-355-6298 (local)

Watch Our Animated Manifesto!

April 24, 2012 by matt · Leave a Comment 

Over the last few months we’ve seen an incredible influx of new readers and supporters, so it seemed good to put our most informative and successful video to-date back on the blog.

Whether you’re brand new or if you’ve been here a hundred times, watch it and let me know your reaction. Is it naive? Spot-on? Over-the-top? Email me!

As PLC's Press Secretary, Matt Willingham writes, reads, edits, tweets, updates, and works with a camera so as to connect hearts and minds to Iraqi children in need. On the side, he likes reading stories, devouring the great food his wife cooks up and exploring DSLR work. He's also mildly obsessed with Twitter: @mehtin.

MY TAKE—”Immigrants A Key Step Toward Peaceful Coexistence In Iraq”

March 23, 2012 by Behar Godani · Leave a Comment 

For millions of immigrants in America,
a sense of belonging and successfully handling their dual cultural identity is one of the most difficult and challenging of tasks. On the one hand, your heart is tied back to a land that was once your home—as is the case with my parents—or at least a place that feels a lot like home—as is the case with my siblings and I.

Yet no matter how many times we go back there or insist that we want to spend the rest of our days here, there never seems to be a perfect fit. There moved right past my parents and the memories they could have made had they not been forced to leave thirty years ago, and here feels much more familiar.

As a result, we’re stuck between here and there, never completely belonging anywhere.

But perhaps the beauty in the limbo that so many immigrant families find themselves in is that they are able to understand and exist in both places at once.

And perhaps that’s where the secret to truly co-existing beside one another lies as well.

There are immigrants who have walked in our shoes, but there are plenty more back there—in Iraq—who, like my parents, were forced to leave and if they survived were likely to be internally displaced. And that’s where so much of the current resentment lies. It was never truly an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality in the sense that entire groups of people became alienated from one another. No matter how bad things became in Iraq, there was always a recognition that the majority of its citizens were good people.

Now, many wonder if the country and its people—in light of recent political developments—will ever live up to the potential that so many of its own politicians boast about and so many in the West had initially hoped for.

The key lies not in government policies, per se—which I yield, can at times favor one group over another and further disenfranchise other groups who already don’t feel welcome in the political system—but in all-natural and real human connections. When people can put a face on families affected by violence, when a doctor from a different faith or ethnicity saves a child’s life, when a Muslim breaks bread with a Christian who’s just as Iraqi as anyone else, the concept of “preemptive strikes” and bombings will become just as foreign and distant a concept as they were all those years ago. Then “preemptive love” and a true sense of commitment to the success and prosperity of the Iraqi state for the sake of its people will begin to emerge.

No more will bureaucrats, insurgencies, or fringe groups attempt to dominate the hearts and minds of the people as much as they have in the past because the people, like my parents, will come to learn the importance of existing in the now. They’ll learn that yes, you may have been displaced and you may have lost loved ones like so many innocent Iraqis have, but our humanity and our hopes for a better future must transcend the easy way out which often involves blaming an entire people or religious group for why things are currently the way they are.

Most immigrants face the challenge of simply reconciling their ethnic identities with their American ones, but families who hail from conflict zones—both those who had an opportunity to escape and those who were forced to stay behind—face the added difficulty of not only staying true to the identity that various groups have tried to wipe out, but also of keeping the anger and sadness in their hearts from ultimately skewing how they view “the other.” That of course can only happen with social projects and movements that focus on bringing different groups together so that individuals can begin to put a face on “that religion” or “that ethnic group.”

Eventually, they’ll come to find—as we all eventually must come to find as human beings—that religion, ethnic identity, the types of clothes a person wears, or the color they choose to dye their hair quickly falls away once that connection is made and “that” person becomes a friend.

Behar Godani is an American Kurd who has spent years as a youth leader in her community working on several projects relating to Kurdish identity and culture. More recently, she helped create the first Kurdish-American newspaper in print. She is both a practicing Muslim and a passionate human rights activist. For more from Behar, find her on Twitter: @BeharGodani.

Tragedy To Triumph—How Preemptive Love Shocked A City

March 8, 2012 by matt · Leave a Comment 

A week ago today our friend Jeremiah Small was killed in his classroom. His own student pulled a gun on him. If you haven’t read about it, see more here.

It happened here in our home city of Sulaymaniyah, and the entire community is still recovering from the shock of it all. Of course, the shock is about the violent death of an American in the oft-touted “the other Iraq” region of Kurdistan, to be sure, but the shock is also about much more than that.

When people in Sulaymaniyah heard that Small’s family was coming to Kurdistan to bury their son, rumors started to fly. Some thought they were coming for financial compensation, others for revenge. And in an eye-for-an-eye culture like this one, rumors like that aren’t crazy. If someone hurts you, you hurt them back. And that’s more than cultural, it’s human nature.

But that isn’t preemptive love.

Until someone is willing to absorb the pain rather than pass it on, violence will only continue to beget violence. Pain has to go somewhere.

So when Jeremiah’s family arrived and began blessing everyone they met, people were amazed! They were grief-stricken, to be sure, but through their great love the Small family proved to be bigger than anything most people had ever seen—they blessed rather than cursed, they sang rather than screamed; their love was furious. They even wore traditional Kurdish clothing in order to show solidarity with the culture.

This was their way of living out preemptive love. Just as Jeremiah worked to love his students first—no questions asked—his family came and loved Kurds preemptively. They were remaking a broken world by choosing to forgive rather than to yield to the endless downward spiral of hate and violence.

Perhaps the most compelling example of this love was at the funeral when both the family of Jeremiah and the family of the boy who killed him embraced (pictured above). They absorbed the pain—shared it even—rather than lashing out at each other.

This is preemptive love. This is the lifestyle we believe everyone can (and should) live by. This is the better way, and the Small family used Jeremiah’s death to show us that.

As PLC's Press Secretary, Matt Willingham writes, reads, edits, tweets, updates, and works with a camera so as to connect hearts and minds to Iraqi children in need. On the side, he likes reading stories, devouring the great food his wife cooks up and exploring DSLR work. He's also mildly obsessed with Twitter: @mehtin.

How I Was Totally Wrong About Dads In Iraq

February 28, 2012 by matt · Leave a Comment 

At best, fathers in Iraq are semi-absent. At worst they’re fully absent, off spending time with friends and neglecting their family.

Or at least that’s what I thought two weeks ago.

Before Remedy Mission IX, my perceptions of Iraqi dads were pretty negative. And they weren’t entirely unfounded. Having lived in Iraq for a year now, I’ve met a number of dads who spend a lot of time away from their family, and it was hard for me to understand.

So I assumed that these fathers didn’t care. Why else would they be so absent?

The key word in that last paragraph, though, is “assumed.” I applied my own cultural understanding to contexts that demanded further explanation!

What if these fathers are away because that’s how much they have to work to put food on the table? What if they’re ashamed to come home because they can’t put food on the table? How could the handful of fathers I know here even begin to represent all of them? And this is probably most important question: since when did I become the time-keeper for fathers in Iraq?

I started asking questions like this at the beginning of our ninth Remedy Mission after I watched an Iraqi father cry over his child’s desperate need for surgery. It threw me off, and I thought he was the rarest man in Iraq I’d ever met.

But then another man wept for joy in front of me that same day when his child was accepted for surgery.

One father was able to calm his shrieking son just by whispering sweetly in the child’s ear. The boy was even giggling by the end of his echo!

Then another man wouldn’t stop holding his daughter after surgery, as though she might break if he let go.

One dad begged me for more photos of his child in surgery—each new glimpse bringing him to tears!

Another persistent father was constantly fretting over his daughter and would grab my sleeve and ask me questions like “Is it OK that she is coughing a lot?” or “When can she eat? How much? What should we give her? When?!”

One father enthusiastically shared his son’s story on-camera.

And, for me, this became the theme of Remedy Mission IX: fathers who desperately love their sons and daughters.

I’m honored to have met them. They changed my perspectives for the better and showed me something beautiful.

As PLC's Press Secretary, Matt Willingham writes, reads, edits, tweets, updates, and works with a camera so as to connect hearts and minds to Iraqi children in need. On the side, he likes reading stories, devouring the great food his wife cooks up and exploring DSLR work. He's also mildly obsessed with Twitter: @mehtin.

In A Word: “Mend”

November 30, 2011 by Lydia · Leave a Comment 

To see more by Polish artist/cartoonist Pawel Kuczynski, go here.

Lydia Bullock wrote and photographed for us during the 2010 summer internship and then again for 7 months in 2011. She documented surgical missions in northern and southern Iraq. See more of her excellent work on our Flickr stream, or follow her on Twitter: @lydiabullock.

Why Generosity Is Another Sign of Health in Iraq

November 10, 2011 by Cody · Leave a Comment 

It was a few weeks back that I received an e-mail from a captain in the Pakistani military. His son, Mohammed, had a heart defect and he was looking for a way to save him. He was willing to travel anywhere and cross any border if it meant fixing Mohammed’s heart.

Is there anything you wouldn’t do for your son?

Other countries had offered to accept Mohammed for surgery, but the cost was high. Then he heard about the Remedy Missions taking place in Iraq and the opportunity for his son to be saved by the hands of Iraqi and American surgeons. Up until now, thousands or Iraqi children were sent outside Iraq to be saved in other countries, but a child hasn’t ever been brought into Iraq for this kind of surgery.

Mohammed would be the first.

While other countries saw Mohammed’s surgery as another financial transaction, the Ministry of Health in Iraq removed every barrier that stood in their way and brought them to this Remedy Mission.

Yesterday, I stood in the hallway talking with Mohammed’s dad and he brought up the name of our coalition, Preemptive Love. He started to share what that meant to him and his family and then he told me, “I believe that this act [preemptive love] is what we were created to do.” He went on to share how he’s been thinking about it and trying to understand how his life could reflect it even more.

We kept talking as his son was playing soccer in the hallway, and then it struck me in a whole new way just how much a single act of love can impact a life. The doctors in Iraq could have turned them away. They could easily have justified it with their own backlog of thousands of Iraqi children waiting in line for surgery. But they didn’t. They welcomed him in and received their very first international patient from outside Iraq.

Talking with the local doctors here, it’s obvious that this surgery has helped them change the narrative of healthcare in Iraq. For so long they’ve only been on the receiving end. They’ve always been the ones asking other countries to help their children. This was their chance to give back.

Now they were able to even show their own people that, one day, Iraq can be a place where others come for help.

In a few hours, Mohammed will be the first international patient to be treated inside Iraq.

Stay tuned!

Our Partners:

Cody Fisher is the co-founder and Development Director of the Preemptive Love Coalition. He moved to Iraq in 2007 where he met his wife and since then they've been waging peace and mending hearts across Iraq. His passions are photography, peacemaking, and food that doesn't come out of a can. You can follow him on Twitter: @candmfisher.

An Interview With Artist Ben Hodson (And A Video Of His Work)

September 3, 2011 by matt · Leave a Comment 

Last month we introduced you to a piece by Ben Hodson, and some of you responded wanting to know more. So Ben shared this video with us documenting how he made the Amna Suraka photomontage.

(HINT: While you’re waiting for the video to load, check out the short interview with Ben below!)

PLC: Start with a little background. What influenced you toward becoming an artist?

Ben: I was born in Brighton, UK into a family with a painter for a mother and a creative entrepreneur for a father. They inspired me to creatively look for solutions to the world’s issues. I moved around a fair bit as a child and even lived in India for a couple of years. These experiences greatly influenced my outlook on life and how I appreciate and view other cultures.

PLC: So where did your interest in Iraq come from? Were you previously interested in Kurdistan before traveling there?

Ben: I have an interest in people–especially people who have a story to tell. The Kurdish and Iraqi stories are surely some of the most defining stories of the 20th and 21st centuries. I have always had an interest in travel and new cultures, and the Middle East has a very hospitable and family-oriented culture, which I like. I also love Kebabs!

PLC: What kind of response have you had to this Amna Suraka piece from Kurds and Brits? Did the exhibit get a good turnout?

Ben: Initially, Kurdish people didn’t respond well to anything with the word “Iraq” in it, but as soon as I spoke to them and explained the relevance and how this draws Brits and Europeans in, they were very positive. It’s a story that most of the West has not heard.

The response [at the exhibit] was very good, hundreds of visitors came to the show, we got numerous feedback comments, we had local and regional press coverage and the curator of the gallery said to me that it was the best show they had ever put on.

PLC: Lastly, would you tell us a little about your work in general and what visual peacemaking means to you?

Ben: I’m interested in ideas of storytelling, narrative, place and location. This is why I went to Iraq. I went looking to explore the story of the Iraq still unseen, to engage with the lives, questions and challenges the media has been ignoring. Though I wanted to tell their story, I soon realised that I could not do this as well as the Iraqi people themselves.

I am not a photojournalist, I do not hunt down the headlines or stop myself getting involved. I am interested in the people, their lives and their stories. I cannot expect people to be affected by what I show them without first allowing my own heart to be broken by what I experienced.

For me, visual peacemaking is about using our creativity to bring about positive change in the world. Specifically bringing peace through all visual means, not just photography.  I am an artist, the photography and filmmaking is only part of what I do. Visual Peacemaking could be done through actually showing art; maybe a documentary, an exhibition of art by a misunderstood community, a series of photographs or even a piece of sculpture or installation art.  This of course embraces the beauty and common humanity of other cultures, but it also may be in finding healing/understanding in our differences and past hurts.

You can check out more of Ben’s work on his personal website HERE. Thanks for reading!

As PLC's Press Secretary, Matt Willingham writes, reads, edits, tweets, updates, and works with a camera so as to connect hearts and minds to Iraqi children in need. On the side, he likes reading stories, devouring the great food his wife cooks up and exploring DSLR work. He's also mildly obsessed with Twitter: @mehtin.

Why Heart Surgeons Are Like Rock Stars

August 22, 2011 by Lydia · 1 Comment 

I’m in an Iraqi hospital room, surrounded by five conservative, Muslim women, discussing Michael Jackson. Wait–what?

During our last Remedy Mission in southern Iraq I became curious about what these families think when they see me. When they meet a young, white, American girl do they take me for who I am, or do stereotypes and reality TV characters precede me? What kind of reputational baggage have American media, troops or aid workers left in Iraq that I don’t even know I’m up against?

Needing to get to the bottom of this, I grabbed a translator and headed to the hospital ward to ask these mothers, “Who or what represents ‘America’ to you?”

The first few answers were easy– “democracy”, “freedom”, “independence.” But these were not the answers I was looking for. I wanted to hone in on who was the singular “face” of America. So we started asking just that, “Which single person represents the United States to you?”

The most popular answer? Michael Jackson. I couldn’t help laughing out loud. Really? Michael Jackson? I was expecting Lady Gaga, Brad Pitt or perhaps Katy Perry (or President Obama, at the very least). But MJ? And I got this answer from not one but several Iraqi families. Pretty interesting, right?

But the resounding response I also kept hearing was….Dr. Novick! Our very own, world-renowned, rockstar heart surgeon from Memphis is revolutionizing the way Iraqis see Americans.

Many of the women agreed that this ICHF team had completely exceeded their expectations on the kindness of the West. I guess saving their child’s life leaves a stronger impression than “American Idol.”

Dr. Novick–Michael Jackson’s got nothing on you!

Lydia Bullock wrote and photographed for us during the 2010 summer internship and then again for 7 months in 2011. She documented surgical missions in northern and southern Iraq. See more of her excellent work on our Flickr stream, or follow her on Twitter: @lydiabullock.

Fasting, Faith and Cantaloupe

August 19, 2011 by Lydia · 804 Comments 

My dad has a (don’t let him hear you say it) small Ford pickup truck.  Despite his affectionate name, “the Big Rig,” his Ford Ranger just couldn’t handle the big leagues. It’s used primarily for carrying salt bags in winter, and it sighs under the weight of mulch in the summer.  It was this faithful little truck that showed up halfway around the world yesterday, as comforting and hardworking as always!

Here’s the scene: I’m sitting in the back seat of this tiny, American-made pickup truck, sandwiched between two hijab-wearing women, driven by a man with a scarf wrapped around his head.

I’m with a good friend and her aunt and uncle, driving to pick cantaloupe from a neighbor’s field. It’s an hour ’til sun down and during Ramadan this means my friends have abstained from food and water all day. We’re bumping across this field (the Big Rig doesn’t need roads) and the 180 year-old woman next to me sighs, “Yah Allah” with every jolt.  After twenty minutes of ambling around this huge plot of land, we finally arrive at the place where we can pick.

Cantaloupe picking is hard. Every single part of the plant has sticker-y things to keep you away. My attention is divided between defending myself against these thorns and keeping my balance–Iraqi soil is both loose and dry, and each step crumbles beneath me. My Steve Madden flats could not be more out of place.

The sun sets and it’s time to break the fast. We break open a cantaloupe and pass pieces around as her uncle kneels to pray before his God—the simplest and most beautiful celebration of gratitude toward the Most High.

With a truck bed full of fruit, we pile in and turn back toward home. I don’t know if it was the prayer, the shared meal or the father who had to make four U-turns before navigating his way out of this field, but today truly felt like “home.”

Lydia Bullock wrote and photographed for us during the 2010 summer internship and then again for 7 months in 2011. She documented surgical missions in northern and southern Iraq. See more of her excellent work on our Flickr stream, or follow her on Twitter: @lydiabullock.

Our Animated Manifesto

August 5, 2011 by Ted · 1 Comment 

Allow me to introduce PLC’s newest video!

If you’re unfamiliar with our work, we consider this our manifesto. Everything we do boils down to this belief: reconciliation happens through healing.

With your help, that which has been destroyed and ‘unmade’ can be rebuilt. It can be healed.

—

For all you video connoisseurs, what did you think? Give us some feedback in the comments section below, or connect with us on Vimeo.

Ted is making the magic happen as PLC's videography intern this summer ('11). He'll be the first to tell you: he shoots and edits to the glory of GOD and the benefit of Iraqi kids. When he isn't panning his camera, well... just go here to read just a few of Ted's lovable idiosyncrasies. He's also an avid Tweeter: @tedvid.

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	Matt Willingham is the PLC press secretary and writes primarily on politics, history, general updates and visual peacemaking through photography and film.
	Cody Fisher is a PLC cofounder and writes primarily on program development and peacemaking by giving us a lens into the lives of the real people we love.
	Jeremy Courtney is a PLC cofounder and writes primarily to emphasize our vision and values, including organizational and financial transparency.

Preemptive Love Coalition provides lifesaving heart surgeries for Iraqi kids in pursuit of peace between communities at odds. We offer the 30,000 Iraqi children suffering from life-threatening heart defects a chance at the surgery they need to save their lives. With our world-class international surgical partners we create long-term solutions by training local Iraqi doctors and nurses so they can sustainably save lives without our help.

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