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Without trying to make things overly simplistic, the Preemptive Love Coalition began with, well, love. Love for the Kurdish and Arab peoples of Iraq. Love for their most hopeful and peaceful aspirations. Love for the hidden beauties of their culture. And love for their kids who are dying from broken hearts.
In July 2007, Jeremy Courtney and Cody Fisher were both working for an NGO in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq. In the course of their various responsibilities, they each had frequent opportunities to interact with parents whose children received free heart screenings from the organization. All too often, the reports came back as expected: severe pediatric heart disease requiring surgery for adequate treatment.
But for nearly all families, this diagnosis was useless because the dinar or dollars it would take to fund the surgery were two-years’-wages beyond their reach. The only way the hearts of these children would ever be healed would be if others were able to work together to provide the funds for them. Courtney and Fisher saw the urgent need to mobilize the financial resources to begin dealing with the daily growing backlog of (at that time) 3,000 cases in northern Iraq alone and they took action.
Courtney and Fisher launched Buy Shoes. Save Lives. as a way to generate critical funding for this need through a creative blending of commerce and compassion. They had both loved the traditional handmade Kurdish shoes known as klash and they suspected that others around the world might like them as well—especially when the purchase of every pair of Klash would help to fund a life-saving heart surgery for a child in Iraq. So they made a documentary short film, launched a website and started to sell shoes to save lives. In the first six months, the BSSL initiative was able to help fund seven surgeries.
As this movement gained momentum, more staff was added and more programs started. The Preemptive Love Coalition was officially incorporated in February 2008 and immediately began diversifying the means through which people could come together to save the lives of kids in Iraq. Continuing sales of Klash and t-shirts plus new sources of funds from Kids Klash and a variety of initiatives like Pinwheels and Hoops for Hearts are all adding up to make a tangible difference in Iraq.
In its first year, the Preemptive Love Coalition has been able to contribute funding for twenty life-saving heart surgeries for Iraqi children. And we’re just getting started.
We cannot predict what the future will hold for the Preemptive Love Coalition, but the future looks extremely hopeful for a number of Iraqi children with a pinwheel-making, Klash-wearing Coalition from around the world on their side.
Don’t forget to visit the Store to get your own t-shirt or a pair Klash to help out kids in Iraq. Or flex your creativity and compassion by visiting our Pinwheels page to find a way that you and others in your community can join the Coalition by offering something of your own effort to saving the lives of Iraqi children.
