Looking Back—3 Ways My Internship in Iraq Changed Me for the Better
May 17, 2012 by matt · Leave a Comment
As I write this, our 2012 interns are in the air and headed toward Iraq! So it only seemed appropriate to share a few lessons-learned by former intern Lauren Sawyer. Lauren wrote out 3 of the most beneficial things she took away from her time here in Iraq, and we’re hoping this year’s interns will also benefit personally as they help us save lives.
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It’s been two full years since I boarded the first of three planes that would take me to Iraq.
Yet I still remember what I was talking about when I first landed in the desert country. Another intern, Lydia, and I were trying to rewrite the words to “Party in the U.S.A.” to fit our situation. By the end of the summer the song became “Party with the P.U.K.,” for a political group in northern Iraq. (Sophisticated conversation? Not so much.)
I have so many memories of that summer in Iraq: the places I ate, the taxi rides, the late-night chats on the roof of our house. But more than that, I have a series of life-changing realizations. Iraq changed me: it changed my perspective, it changed my behavior. Here are a few ways:
(1) People are just people wherever you go.
While in Iraq, a fellow intern Claire and I used to hum Regina Spektor’s song “The Ghost of Corporate Future” with the lyrics: “People are just people; they shouldn’t make you nervous.” I’m convinced we got that song stuck in our heads as often as we did because of that first line: “People are just people.” We found ourselves saying those words all the time, whenever we met another Iraqi we had something in common with.
The similarities between me, a young American girl, and the Iraqis I met were most clear in the English class Claire taught. I noticed how our Iraqi students watched the same TV shows as us (Vian loved “Grey’s Anatomy”) and had similar views on marriage, even, and education.
But more than that, I met people who were fundamentally like all people I knew in the States. I met fathers who loved their children, who would do anything to keep them healthy. I met children who loved games and were happy always—even when they were on their way to surgery.
Now that I’m back in the U.S., I still have opportunities to remind myself of this truth, that people are just people. I’ve spent the past two summers working for a nonprofit that advocates for people with disabilities. I’ve learned there, too, that people are just people— whether they are blind or have Down Syndrome. People are just people.
(2) We cannot accurately critique people without having truly experienced their culture.
Last semester I was sitting in my freshman-level philosophy course—as a senior—counting how many times the blonde freshman-but-sophomore-by-credits said something rude and untrue about Muslims. In that same class I heard my professor and other students make claims about how Iraq is “Worse off now that the U.S. troops are leaving”—as if these silly Midwest American civilians knew anything about life in Iraq.
My roommate and my boyfriend both told me to just say something and I did, once, without much effect. Changing someone’s mind about a culture isn’t easy.
Living in Iraq for two months taught me that you cannot critique or judge a culture without having experienced their culture like an insider. Visiting Italy for a few weeks is not the same as living like an Italian, speaking the language, shopping where they shop, eating their food, learning about their politics, their history. My two-month stint in Iraq taught me that I didn’t know enough about Iraq to critique it.
I need to keep asking questions. As soon as I stop asking questions and think I have it figured out, I’ll inevitably hurt someone or lead others to believe a lie. So when people like that freshman-but-sophomore-by-credits girl say something I know is untrue to my experience in Iraq, I need to do more than just correct them. I need to show them how to ask questions, to hunger for understanding, and to have an imagination, which leads me to my last point…
(3) We are called to be people of imagination.
I heard about the Preemptive Love Coalition when I had lost all faith in my future. I was 19 years old, and I thought that just because my life wasn’t heading in the direction I thought it should, it was over. But after reading PLC’s mission statement and then talking to Jeremy and Cody about their vision for Iraq’s future, my faith was restored. I recognized even before I boarded those planes that those working for PLC were people of imagination, and I wanted to be a part of it.
I’m convinced that you can’t do anything big and life-changing without having imagination. I doubt PLC would have ever existed without Jeremy and friends imagining a life without heart defects, without thousands of kids in line for surgery.
Before I worked for PLC that summer, I let myself live small stories that took little imagination. I expected my life to be like everyone else’s, without real risk, without adventure. But PLC showed me how to have an imagination, to dream up a better world for others and for myself.
Now, as I’m graduate-school bound (“real world” bound, as I say), I know that imagination will save me from living a self-centered life. Imagination will turn me into a person like the PLC staff and the doctors and the business people I met in Iraq, dedicated to changing the world—and able to.
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You can read more musings by Lauren on her blog. Come back next week and we’ll introduce you to our new summer interns—can’t wait!
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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—The Real Meaning of Mother’s Day
May 13, 2012 by matt · Leave a Comment
We’re deviating from our typical Tuesday-Thursday regimen to bring you a Mother’s Day guest post by the excellent Kristine Brite McCormick.
Kristine is an advocate and activist based in Indiana, and she is responsible for many of the lifesaving operations we’ve provided over the years. Take a few minutes to read her story:
This Sunday will mark my fourth Mother’s Day. I have not held my baby in my arms for any of them.
I was pregnant Mother’s Day 2009. I got cards from my husband and mother, and thought about the next year when I’d wake up to a baby and be a “real mother.” My perception of a real mother was so off. In November, I gave birth to Cora, and she was perfect. Except I didn’t know she was born with a broken heart—congenital heart disease.
She died suddenly and unexpectedly only five days later. The last two Mother’s Days have been spent wishing I could hide from the day’s barrage of images of “perfect families.”
For too many mothers across the globe, Mother’s Day is spent not holding our babies, but visiting their grave stone, or in the hospital willing them to get better.
In Iraq, Mother’s Day for thousands of moms means knowing their child’s heart is a ticking time bomb. With every pump of blood, their child’s heart becomes a little more weakened. Without lifesaving surgery, they will die. It’s a fact, this will be the last Mother’s Day for hundreds of Iraqi mothers to hold their babies.
I won’t ever hold my daughter again. Instead, I throw all of my energy into hoping all moms see their babies become adults.
To the mothers sitting bedside in Iraq, hopelessly watching your child struggle, I’m glad the Preemptive Love Coalition is here. Hope is coming. It won’t come in time for all of you, but it’s coming. I promise to do everything I can to make it come faster, and I hope other moms will join me.
That’s the real meaning of Mother’s Day for me, working to make sure every mother gets to spend the day with her child, in the U.S., in Iraq, and across the world.
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To see how Kristine is making lifesaving, legislative change on behalf of mothers, visit her website: www.KristineBrite.com
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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.
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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. |
“Martina Pavaníć is the best scrub nurse in the whole [wide] world.” – William Novick, M.D.
May 30, 2011 by Jeremy · 1 Comment
That wasn’t the exact quote; the original was much more colorful and forceful! But the point is this: your financial investment in our Remedy Missions has helped us secure an amazing nurse for the operating room who is an incredibly capable administrator, leader, problem solver, and educator. In a pinch, she has the ability to play the role of Teaching First Assistant (to the lead surgeon).
We’re in the middle of Remedy Mission V, and even though most of the medical team turns over every mission with volunteers from all over the world, Martina is also on Remedy V. She has put in more hours of surgery and training across Iraq than any other single foreigner from anywhere in the world.
Martina was a recipient of this type of “humanitarian aid” or training back in her home country of Croatia when Dr. William Novick of the International Children’s Heart Foundation landed for a proto-Remedy Mission in 1993 and began training Croatians like Martina to be the remedy for their own children.
To hear Dr. Novick tell the story, Martina was very skittish and intimidated in the early days as a trainee in Zagreb, Croatia. “She would prepare the table incorrectly in the early days and I would send her home at the end of the day crying.”
After more than 15 years working alongside Dr. Novick in one form or another, it now takes a lot to make Martina cry. And she certainly knows how to prepare an operating room. If anything, Martina now sends others home crying and may well be the most intimidating force in the O.R.! I’ve personally left the O.R. more than once with my tail between my legs after crossing her sterile field or speaking too loudly in a way that distracted the training and surgery underway!
Once in South America an unexpected set of circumstances required Martina – a nurse – to walk a local surgeon through a highly complex surgery step-by-step “just like Dr. Novick does it.”
She knows her stuff!
Get a picture in your mind of Croatia in the early 1990s. Under-developed hospitals, atrophied education systems failing to adequately feed into the workforce, political in-fighting, limited access to medical supplies and resources, ethnic & civil war, and the world’s collective eye watching to see what would happen next.
It sounds like today’s Iraq!
The most inspiring thing to me about Martina is the way in which she epitomizes the ethos of our Remedy Mission approach. To simplify:
- 1) she needed training and resources
- 2) she received training and resources in her home country and helped save thousands of lives
- 3) now she travels the world training others and providing resources so they can serve their own children
The trainee has become the trainer; the aid recipient the reciprocator; the beneficiary the benefactor.
That, in my opinion, is preemptive love. Maybe she would have amounted to nothing in the medical field. Maybe she didn’t have the stomach for it. Maybe she didn’t look the part. Maybe Croatia was a bad bet back in the day. Maybe the problems seemed too intractable.
Preemptive love gave Martina wings. And Dr. Novick’s preemptive love in the 1993 is still creating shockwaves around the world today any time Martina scrubs in.
Will you invest today in tomorrow’s “Martina?”
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Martina was able to learn, and now teach, because someone invested in her! Now you can invest in local nurses just like Martina by donating to our medical training program! |
Our Partners:
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Jeremy Courtney lives and loves in Iraq as a co-founder and Executive Director of the Preemptive Love Coalition. He's also the father of two spectacular children, and married to the lovely Jessica Courtney. When not absorbed in PLC work he can be found writing songs and singing about hope and future. Follow Jeremy on Twitter: @JCourt. |
Featured Partner: Behar Godani
May 9, 2011 by matt · 1 Comment
Behar Godani is the kind of person non-profits dream of having in their corner. In fact, if you search “ultimate supporter” in Wikipedia… well, you mostly get a bunch of gibberish, but you should see her photo.
She started spearheading support for PLC way back in the day; fund-raisers, spreadin’ the word, Facebook “likes”, bake sales—she’s done it all! And that’s great for an overseas staff like ours because we don’t spend much time Stateside. She’s a lifeline across the Atlantic, and today (which also happens to be her birthday!) she agreed to an interview:
PLC: Let’s start by hearing a little about you. Tell us about yourself.
Behar: My name is Behar, and I’m now a 25 year-old student program analyst for the US Department of State. I recently graduated with my MA in Political Science and my Graduate Certificate in Bio-defense for Critical Analysis and Strategic Responses to Terrorism. I’m interested in anything and everything relating to politics in the Middle East, although, being Kurdish, I’ve always had a bias for the politics surrounding Iraqi Kurdistan.
Over the past year I’ve been a co-partner in two projects that resulted in the production of a documentary and short film on the Kurdish Diaspora in the US, and I did some work with the US Institute of Peace where I was featured in a documentary about issues in diaspora communities.
Non profit work through various organizations has also always been a profound interest of mine. The use of media to promote issues within my own diaspora community and my Kurdish community back home has been a way for me to feel like I’m contributing in some positive way—however small—to a homeland that I’ve always felt connected to but have never quite had complete access to.
My ultimate aspiration, on a more general level, would be to finally see peace in Iraq as a whole, but, more specifically, I yearn for the day when my particular country—Kurdistan—is finally independent and when its children have the educational and healthcare initiatives in place that ensures a long term, brighter future for generations to come.
PLC: So how did you hear about the Preemptive Love Coalition?
Behar: Maureen Mcluckie from “Kurdistan: Save the Children” first referred me to Jeremy and Cody via email after I expressed my desire to become directly involved with an NPO helping Kurds and Arabs in Iraq from the states.
When I first saw the initial BuyShoesSaveLives website, I remember getting goosebumps as I couldn’t believe the amount of dedication and love PLC put into helping Iraqi children and how easy it was for anyone to simply donate. They even had ideas about how we as students could get involved at our universities, and that’s when I think I knew I’d found the right organization.
Seeing teenagers wear klash with jeans was perhaps another indicator. Who knew Kurdish shoes could look so cool with jeans?!
PLC: You’ve obviously got a big heart for your homeland and these children. Where does your motivation for them come from?
Behar: I think my greatest motivation has been a sincere desire to move beyond the politics and crippling bureaucracy that’s done such a huge disservice to all Iraqis and to simply start at the grassroots level by helping people.
As a child of two Kurdish parents who first came to the US as refugees about thirty years ago, I’ve seen the power of grassroots movements first hand in terms of keeping culture and language alive, but also by bringing people together in the name of a greater cause that we can all believe in.
Helping sick children, many of whom continue to suffer from the diseases contracted by their parents after exposure to Saddam Hussein’s chemical agents, is a cause that is—or at least should be—an easy way to unite people of all backgrounds, be they Kurdish, Iraqi, Turcomen, Assyrian, or your average American with an incredibly big heart. It’s something we can all agree on as human beings, and I couldn’t find an organization that communicated that better than PLC.
PLC: Thanks! Is there anything you’d like to tell the rest of the Coalition? Any rally cries, encouragements, or challenges?
Behar: I’d like to encourage continued commitment despite all the opposition, obstacles and incredibly vocal naysayers that you may encounter along your way. Where there are pure hearts, strong wills, a love of God and a refusal to accept ‘no’ for an answer, there will always be a way, God-willing.
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Our thanks to Behar and the entire Kurdish Student Organization at George Mason University for being such awesome partners for kids in Iraq! We’re wishing you a happy birthday today from Iraqi Kurdistan!
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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. |
Cedarville Is At It Again!
April 12, 2011 by Cody · 2 Comments
Cedarville University is starting off the month of April by hosting their sixth annual Baseball Classic in Ohio where they hope to fund four heart surgeries by the ninth inning!
Cedarville continues to be one of our most loyal partners in doing good in Iraq. In 2008 their student body raised $30,000, making this a total of nine Iraqi children they’ve helped save!
This Friday, April 15th, at 7 PM, the Cedarville Yellow Jackets are taking on Urbana Blue Nights at Fifth Third Field in Dayton, Ohio.
If you’re in the area, tickets are only $5 and you’ll get the chance to see some great baseball and help save the lives of four children in Iraq!
Get more information by clicking HERE!
GO YELLOW JACKETS!
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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: |
Death Will Never Conquer
March 4, 2011 by Jeremy · 5 Comments
Yahya passed away early this morning after an all-night surgery. It was a surprise to everyone. When he was admitted to the ICU there seemed to be plenty of confidence that he would be just fine. But within just 30 minutes of admission his heart gave out and all efforts to revive him failed.
I still remember the first time I was introduced to Yahya. It was over a year ago. His uncle called my cell phone and said, “I’m at your office, I need to talk to you about a sick kid.”
It was after hours and I was already at home. But I could hear the urgency in his voice so I invited him to my home for tea. He arrived and made an impassioned plea for Yahya – his brother’s son. I was leery of helping Yahya after reading his reports – we had seen some children with complex heart defects like him die abroad and I couldn’t stand to put a family through that drama again. I did my best to avoid commitment and send Yahya’s uncle into the night without any solid hope for his nephew.
The following weeks were filled with phone calls and followup from the family, “Please help our boy!”
Finally, I met Yahya’s mom and dad and the little cutie himself. As they sat in my office they pled with humble urgency. They weren’t forceful. They weren’t rude. But they applied enough pressure on me that I couldn’t say “no” any longer. They made it abundantly clear that they understood the risk of his surgery and that they wanted it badly enough to endure whatever might come.
One of our core values as an organization is that we give “hope to the hopeless.” What that means is that we try to balance our impulse to be “last chance” people with our instinct to be “long-term” people. We held back on Yahya, wondering if it would give him long-term viability. But we ultimately dove in with Yahya’s family because we were their last chance. No one else would take on the risk.
We solidified this core value in November 2009 when we asked you what to do about a little boy named Ramyar. We asked you if you wanted us to apply your money in a high risk surgery or save it for a “sure thing.” You overwhelming said, “We want this Coalition to be about hope for the hopeless.”
We haven’t looked back since. We are the Last Chancers.
Still, committing to Yahya was full of complications. His surgery in Turkey was canceled due to an unavailability of an expensive assistant device. In fact, there was even discussion as to whether or not he should be included in our current Remedy Mission. Ultimately, we let the family themselves decide.
Our local cardiologist, along with our American surgeon, explained the risks of surgery, the option of waiting, etc. etc. Yahya’s dad was given a 50/50 chance of survival for little Yahya. Understandably, they wanted to give it a try. They couldn’t stand the risk of feeling like they had an opportunity to try and let it slip through their hands.
What would you have done? I have two kids – 5 and 3 years old. I have no idea what I would have done.
During Yahya’s surgery our Family Services Director, Jessica, sat down in the ward with all the parents whose kids were either in surgery or in critical condition in the ICU – those families whose kids were not “out of the woods” yet. As they asked questions about our organization and how long we’ve been working here, she recounted for them our past of taking children outside the country to significantly nicer hospitals than this Iraqi version in which we currently work. She told them about excellent American-trained Turkish doctors and fancy, pristine protocols abroad. Without fail, every family was so grateful for the chance to receive surgery at home. Let the Turks have their pristine hospital. “What if our child were to die abroad?” That would be a burden far too great to bear.
You gave Yahya’s family a chance that no one else would have. He had been rejected by every other opportunity out there. They are grateful to you. They will rest knowing they gave it their all for their only child.
And this is what we find almost universally – parents who just want a chance. And that’s what Remedy Missions are all about. We could continue to export kids to world class facilities, but who would invest in the future? We could continue to select the easiest children that almost never die, but does that make us any less culpable for the kids we pretend aren’t knocking on our door?
Was this a wasted opportunity? Did we waste the $670 that it cost us to provide Yahya surgery?
I used to feel that way when a child died in Turkey or Jordan or Jordan. I don’t feel that way anymore. Yahya’s death – though a terrible loss – was still an opportunity for local doctors to learn an innovative technique that they will be able to apply in future situations. His death was almost certainly unrelated to the particular tactic used in attempting to heal his heart. Educational gains always have significant costs. Before we only had the “we gave this child a chance” platitude. It’s not untrue. But local learning is an equally deep reason why your gift for Yahya made a difference.
Thank you for your willingness to stick with us through life and death. The gains that are needed here will not be made without significant risk and vision. We deeply appreciate your demand that we be the people of the last chance. I think it’s easier to sleep knowing we tried, than knowing we played it safe just so we could publish numbers and blog posts that seem more palatable.
With you,
Jeremy Courtney
Executive Director
email: http://scr.im/jcourt
+1 (806) 853-9131
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Jeremy Courtney lives and loves in Iraq as a co-founder and Executive Director of the Preemptive Love Coalition. He's also the father of two spectacular children, and married to the lovely Jessica Courtney. When not absorbed in PLC work he can be found writing songs and singing about hope and future. Follow Jeremy on Twitter: @JCourt. |
See One. Do One. Teach One. Remedy Mission Trains Iraqi Heart Doctors and Nurses for the Future of the Children and their Country
February 23, 2011 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment
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Push play above for a peek into what it means for our volunteers to be here training local Iraqi heart doctors and nurses.
After you’ve viewed it, please “SHARE” below with Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. |
If you’re on Twitter this week be sure to use the #RemedyMission hashtag to describe all the good news coming out of Iraq this week via @preemptivelove.
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Jeremy Courtney lives and loves in Iraq as a co-founder and Executive Director of the Preemptive Love Coalition. He's also the father of two spectacular children, and married to the lovely Jessica Courtney. When not absorbed in PLC work he can be found writing songs and singing about hope and future. Follow Jeremy on Twitter: @JCourt. |
Alawi Receives His Much Needed Heart Surgery!
February 21, 2011 by Cody · Leave a Comment
This morning Alawi got the heart surgery we’ve all been waiting for!
Local doctors and nurses – alongside the ICHF team – took a minimalistic approach to his repair, seeking to do as little “trauma” to his heart as possible. Unfortunately, after surgery, it seemed the minimalist approach wasn’t holding as well as they hoped. They decided to perform an even more robust correction that would make Alawi even stronger than he already was.
So Alawi went yet again into the operating room just as bravely as he went into his first operation.
Alawi’s a reminder of what we’re committed to – we will do whatever it takes to make each child and each Iraqi doctor and nurse into the healthiest child and most-skilled doctor or nurse they can be.
Hoping for the best still never makes it easy to watch a child go in for surgery.
We could not do this without you! You are our heroes and you inspire us to keep going so much! Stay tuned to get the latest update on Alawi from the ICU via our Facebook Page!
Our Partners
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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: |
Meet Ali. He Finally Got His Lifesaving Surgery on Our Second Trip to Southern Iraq
February 17, 2011 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment
Ali gets his surgery as the first child during our February 2011 Remedy Mission to southern Iraq.
An interview with Cody Fisher about his first encounter with Ali and the journey to where he is today.
Push play above to meet little Ali….
With you,
If you’re on Twitter this week be sure to use the #RemedyMission hashtag to describe all the good news coming out of Iraq this week via @preemptivelove.
Our Partners
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Jeremy Courtney lives and loves in Iraq as a co-founder and Executive Director of the Preemptive Love Coalition. He's also the father of two spectacular children, and married to the lovely Jessica Courtney. When not absorbed in PLC work he can be found writing songs and singing about hope and future. Follow Jeremy on Twitter: @JCourt. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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.