Failure Report: Year 2011 (Part 2 of 3)
May 22, 2012 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment
The only bad failure
is the one from which we fail to learn.
Most organizations put a premium on celebrating successes at the end of every year—we certainly do!
But we also believe that we have a great deal to learn from our failures, so we endeavor to share them and the lessons we’ve learned in hopes of avoiding those same mistakes in the future.
When seeking to tackle intractable problems in an environment like Iraq, missed opportunities, missteps, false starts, and failures are par-for-the-course. There will be no improvement in the political situation in Iraq, in the economy, in healthcare, or in the pursuit of peace without a number of flops and failures along the journey. If we already knew what worked, we all would’ve implemented it by now and moved on.
The truth is, neither the American government nor the Iraqi—neither international nor local NGOs—truly know what works in Iraq. Most of us are making educated guesses and seeking to rightly adapt programs and principles that have proven successful at other times in Iraq or in other parts of the world.
From this point forward, I want to provide you with an annual (and sometimes real-time) assessment of our failures. In absence of such previous reports, I will use a few minutes to highlight our most meaningful setbacks, failures and lessons learned to date.
The three major failures of 2011, to be covered in this series of reports are:
Failure #2: High-mortality Remedy Missions in February/March 2011
Failure #3: The Loss of Our Sulaymaniyah, Iraq Surgery Site as a Major Developmental Partner; Lack of Surgical Capacity Increase As a Result of Remedy Missions Conducted
Let’s get started…
2011 Failure #2: High-mortality Remedy Missions in February/March 2011
In February and March we ran two back-to-back Remedy Missions. One was our second in the southern city of Nasiriyah; the other was our second in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah.
Over the course of four weeks of surgery, mortality rates between the two cities reached 20.5% (7 deaths out of 34 operations).
A few of the losses were very surprising to many on the local and international team and had an extremely demoralizing effect on the team (particularly in Sulaymaniyah). The loss of momentum undoubtedly had a qualitative impact on the care provided as the trip progressed.
Some of the factors were anomalous, such as our lead surgeon contracting an infection in a wound on his ankle that resulted in impromptu surgery inside Iraq to save his leg. But other factors were almost certainly preventable, beginning with case selection and moving to fundamental deficiencies in the hospital equipment and protocols themselves.
A lack of warming blankets, portable oxygen units, a ready blood bank and several other fundamentals led to a less-than-ideal environment for the teaching of pediatric cardiac care. As a result of all these factors and the inherent difficulties of open-heart surgery, mortality rates in the Sulaymaniyah mission reached 22% (four deaths)—unacceptably high by any standard.
None of the deaths were considered “surgical” deaths, in the sense that the child did not die on the operating table, but rather in the post-operative intensive care unit, ward, or—in one case—in the car on the way home after being prematurely discharged by a local nurse the day the international team left the country.
Lessons Learned:
Our international team was very impressed with the local cardiologist for Remedy Mission II in the southern city of Nasiriyah. When it came time to schedule Remedy Mission III in that city, the decision was apparently made to not send a cardiologist on the mission, believing that the local team could handle it. This may have contributed to the imbalanced case selection in RM III and may have led to the situation in which three children died during the course of the mission.
Since that mission, an international cardiologist has been present on every Remedy Mission in an effort to help with case selection and create a balanced schedule of surgeries.
In Sulaymaniyah for Remedy Mission IV, case selection was complicated by the number of stakeholders in the mission. Children were formally and informally (that is, “politically”) put into the mission by the Preemptive Love Coalition, local cardiologists and surgeons, Kurdistan Save the Children (a local NGO), and the Health Directorate.
With regard to Yahya’s case, as described before, I can certainly say that my judgement was impaired when it came to case selection. I can speculate that other entities, in an effort to do right by the friends and patients on their lists, made similar errors in judgement that ultimately skewed the balance of the surgery schedule and its complexities.
When two children died in Sulaymaniyah after the international team left for the airport, we realized for the first time how ill-equipped the local team was to handle relatively simple post-operative care (one child had a positive prognosis in the ICU and the other was already out of ICU and recovering in the ward).
In our post-mission Impact Evaluation Report, we published the following statement:
Our post-mission conferences and deliberations on the matter resulted in the following protocols:
1. A mandatory reduction in “RACHS-1 scores” presented to the international team by the local team
2. A mandatory international ICU team to be left behind after surgeries stop to stave off post-mission ICU deaths and errant discharges
3. A postponing of our next planned mission to the Sulaymaniyah Center for Heart Disease due to lack of preparation of materials, equipment, staff, and protocols
If you have any questions or concerns about this report, the decisions we’ve made, or the direction we are going, please email me at your convenience. I would love to hear from you.
Failure Report: Year 2011 (Part 1 of 3)
May 3, 2012 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment
The only bad failure
is the one from which we fail to learn.
Most organizations put a premium on celebrating successes at the end of every year—we certainly do!
But we also believe that we have a great deal to learn from our failures, so we endeavor to share them and the lessons we’ve learned in hopes of avoiding those same mistakes in the future.
When seeking to tackle intractable problems in an environment like Iraq, missed opportunities, missteps, false starts, and failures are par-for-the-course. There will be no improvement in the political situation in Iraq, in the economy, in healthcare, or in the pursuit of peace without a number of flops and failures along the journey. If we already knew what worked, we all would’ve implemented it by now and moved on.
The truth is, neither the American government nor the Iraqi—neither international nor local NGOs—truly know what works in Iraq. Most of us are making educated guesses and seeking to rightly adapt programs and principles that have proven successful at other times in Iraq or in other parts of the world.
From this point forward, I want to provide you with an annual (and sometimes real-time) assessment of our failures. In absence of such previous reports, I will use a few minutes to highlight our most meaningful setbacks, failures and lessons learned to date.
The three major failures of 2011, to be covered in this report are:
Failure #2: High-mortality Remedy Missions in February/March 2011
Failure #3: The Loss of Our Sulaymaniyah, Iraq Surgery Site as a Major Developmental Partner; Lack of Surgical Capacity Increase As a Result of Remedy Missions Conducted
Let’s get started…
Failure #1: Leadership Indecisiveness on the Case of Six-Year-old Yahya
This was a major lesson in leadership that potentially affects every area of our organizational and team life, couched in the saga of one very specific family.
I was walking home from work one night in Iraq in early 2010, when my phone rang. On the other end of the line was a man, knocking on the door back at my office, in hopes of meeting me and presenting the case of his nephew, Yahya, to me for surgical consideration. I asked if we could meet tomorrow, but he was insistent and there seemed to be great urgency in his voice. Instead of postponing the meeting, I gave him directions to my home and met with him over tea.
From early on, the situation was less than ideal. Yahya had already received one charitable heart surgery and the second one that was being requested was bound to be difficult.
In our 2007-2010 Failure Report, I noted our decision to restrict the complexity of children we sent abroad for surgery after a series of deaths caused us to reconsider our risk tolerance. Yahya was definitely on the high end of our new risk tolerance.
I chose to refuse surgery to the family based on our new priorities.
Months later, after a new check-up, Yahya’s mother and father brought him into our office to inquire again about the possibility of surgery. I’ll never forget sitting with them in my office explaining our decision to decline surgery funding for Yahya.
Then, with all the persistence that you would expect from a mother, she appealed to me again not to turn away their little boy.
I think one thing that non-profit directors and program directors fail to say often enough is this: “I am a human. I’m swayed by the kindness or brashness of our patients and, at times, it heavily influences how I make selection decisions.”
I could not continue to say “no” any longer. I said “yes” (with conditions).
Our surgeon in Istanbul was clear from the beginning that his surgery would require a “valved conduit” (an additional $5,000 expense or more) and licensing agreements in Turkey at the time had caused a shortage of such devices.
Cody Fisher (Development Director) did a great job reaching an agreement with Medtronic providing Yahya with a donated conduit, but the timing of receiving the conduit was still beholden to the licensing agreements that were being worked out in Istanbul.
All these factors together ultimately led to Yahya missing our July 2010 surgery group to Istanbul. We refunded the family’s portion of the money they had contributed for his surgery.
Shortly thereafter, in August 2010, we conducted our first Remedy Mission inside Iraq—our new programatic focus on localized training and development. The mission was such a huge success, I became convinced that we needed to cease all funding for outside surgeries and focus solely on development work inside the country.
But I also felt a sense of commitment to Yahya and his family, who were basically caught in the transitional period between one programatic focus and another.
What I should have done at that point was send Yahya to surgery in Turkey, finish our commitments there, take the free valved conduit from Medtronic, and finish our work in Turkey strongly. What I did instead was place Yahya on an upcoming Remedy Mission and take the Turkey option off the table for the family.
What I didn’t account for very well in that decision was how the complexity of Yahya’s case would fare in a development setting; a setting in which local capacity was far below that which he would have received in Istanbul.
In the chaos of Remedy Mission IV, a number of things went badly. Among them, Yahya’s family probably did not receive the proper explanations that they should have about the risks of his surgery and they probably felt very vulnerable about the decision to go forward with the risky surgery or forever miss their opportunity.
It was difficult to assess all this in real time, in part because I was so hopeful for Yahya and his family. In my optimism, I did not see or recognize a few red flags. But even that is not the whole truth… I remember hesitations—“red flags”—even as I sit here today. I willingly suppressed anything that was not hopeful and optimistic. It seemed noble, brave and right.
But he wasn’t my child.
Yahya’s surgery presented many complications that ultimately required doctors to operate through the night. When Yahya arrived in ICU around 5 or 6 a.m. the next morning, he was deemed stable enough for the surgical team to go to the hotel for a few hours of sleep. Before their bus even arrived at the hotel, though, Yahya had passed away in ICU.
I would not normally include a single death in a year-end Failure Report. My point is not that I feel bad and need catharsis. It’s just that Yahya was different, and not only because he had a name or because his family hosted us for dessert in their home and shared tea in mine. No, Yahya was different because I flipped-flopped on the family so many times. I said “no.” Then “yes.” Then “no” again. And then “yes.” And then he died.
Organizationally, the failure was related to a lesson we were just beginning to identify in our 2007-10 Failure Report: we are not the best qualified to select children for surgery. The suggested way forward at that time is still right: we have handed child selection over to a committee of local healthcare providers and our international surgical team. There will still be deaths that we regret deeply, but they will be less a function of our role and influence in the child selection process.
Personally, the failure was related to my inability to make a decision and stick with it. I always had a bad feeling about Yahya’s likelihood to endure surgery. That was why I denied funding more than a year prior to his death. I had good reason to deny funding. But I went back on my hunch. Fair enough… I wanted to give a family a chance. But I never really got over my fears of his death and that made me unwilling to go all in with the family. I hedged over spending extra money on his expensive valved conduit. And even when the conduit was donated, I found other reasons to delay surgery for fear of spending a lot of money (including the family’s) on a surgery about which I was always suspicious.
Lessons Learned:
1. It’s OK to change one’s mind; but a leadership “Yes” or “No” should mean something. It hurts everyone involved to say one thing, give the impression of support, and never fully get behind one’s own decision. In this case, it played a role in Yahya’s death. He may have died in Istanbul just the same. The death itself is not the failure here. The faulty, character-flawed process by which I made life-altering decisions is.
I said “no.” I should have stood my ground. Or I said “yes” and I should have given that family my fullest “yes” ever. Instead, I said “yes” and stayed on the fence. I won’t do that again.
2. We are not qualified to select children. We are too emotionally attached and we do not possess the knowledge to make a right decision about a patient’s candidacy for surgery. We have handed child selection over to a collaboration between local cardiologists and our international surgical teams.
If you have any questions or concerns about this report, the decisions we’ve made, or the direction we are going, please email me at your convenience. I would love to hear from you.
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.
—
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!
How Preemptive Love Works Toward Local Solutions to Local Problems
August 21, 2009 by Jeremy · 2 Comments
VISION & VALUES
By the end of Quarter 2 2009 PLC had spent $225,605 to fund heart surgeries for Iraqi kids, impacting forty families in life-changing ways, and decreasing the overall backlog by an additional ten percent.
You’ve heard that the Preemptive Love Coalition exists to eradicate the backlog of Iraqi children waiting for life-saving heart surgeries and to create cooperation between communities in conflict. But it is important to us that you understand how we seek to accomplish this mission and why.
We strive to fulfill our mission by creating…
- Local funding for local problems
- An ethos of volunteerism and community in hopes of subverting the prevailing distrust of one another
- International partnerships and infrastructure that will outlast our own organizational presence in Iraq
When we started in 2007 we began to calculate the need in terms of $10,000 surgeries for 4,000 children… or $40,000,000. The scary thing was the reality that surgery prices would likely go up with the global economic situation and that the 4,000 on “THE LIST” were probably just representatives of a larger number.
As we stared down what seemed to us to be a giant need, we finally realized that we would need to change the system and the rules of engagement if we would ever be a part of achieving the results we wanted. After a year and a half of ambling through different procedures and a lot of trial and error we implemented what proved to be our most impactful strategy to date: to partner with families for their healthcare.
Many in Iraq told us that the United Nations (and others) had created a culture here that prevented Iraqis from a willingness to engage in their own advancement; that the mentality was one of waiting around for others to give handouts. Still, we were hopeful that partnering with families for 25% of the package price would be a revolutionary start.
At the same time, we committed ourselves to seeking an additional 25% in local funding from charities, businesses, and local philanthropists.
All the while, we work diligently to maintain and extend the scope of our logistics and medical partnerships so that we can continue to provide the greatest services at the greatest prices.
Here are a few more details on how all that works…
MARKET vs. PLC PRICING
The life-saving heart surgeries we provide take place at the world-class Anadolu Medical Center (ASM) in Istanbul, Turkey. Before discounts and partnerships, the total market prices on the services offered by PLC begin at $22,000. For heart conditions that are more complicated, prices would easily exceed $50-75,000.
Through partnerships with Atlasjet Airlines, Anadolu Medical Center, and medical supply providers around the world, PLC is able to regularly facilitate life-saving heart surgeries for Iraqi children at 60-70% off market prices.
After all of our partnerships, discounts, subsidies and patient family contributions the remaining cash need per child is approximately $5,000 before we can schedule a surgery.
PLC also keeps cash reserves on hand for the occasional surgery that runs far above the average cost.
After PLC provides 60-70% discount off market prices for airfare, in-city transportation, and hospital services, local Iraqi sources (families, charities, businesses) pay an average of 57% of the remaining cash needs, and PLC pays the remaining 43% through our internationally donated funds.
FAMILY FUNDING
Families of children seeking heart surgery are expected to contribute $2,500 toward the health care of their children. This $2,500 helps PLC offset the remaining cash needs related to international travel, diagnostic testing, hospital stay, surgical expenses, and/or post-discharge room/board needs for their children.
When the patient’s family cannot contribute this $2,500 out of their own personal savings, they are encouraged to appeal to extended family, friends, employers, and religious communities for financial help. Unlike many who work in the relief and development world, we do not believe that Iraqis are helpless or that we are their saviors. They have proven to be people of great dignity, creativity, and worth and our overarching commitment is to come along side them as they pursue hope & a future.
LOCAL IRAQI FUNDING (CHARITABLE)
For each surgery, PLC seeks an additional $2,500 from Iraqi businesses and charities (such as our partner, Kurdistan Save the Children). Charitable donations solicited by PLC are not intended to substitute for or reduce the family’s share of the total costs.
Through the shared responsibility for the funding of these surgeries, we hope to nurture a value of volunteerism and community that will eventually produce a greater love for all in our community and more local funding to solve local problems.
LOCAL IRAQI FUNDING (COMMERCE)
By investing over $25,000 to date in micro-enterprise development across multiple villages and cities through our Buy Shoes. Save Lives. program, we have sold enough hand-made Kurdish Klash shoes to fund 11% of our life-saving heart surgeries to date (other merchandise sales excluded).
This Buy Shoes. Save Lives. money is different kind of local solution to these local heart problems. Though the revenue itself is not “local” (Iraqi), neither the 11% for life-saving heart surgeries nor the $25,000 in micro-enterprise development would be available without PLC’s Buy Shoes. Save Lives. program.
This is yet another example of the people of Iraq working for their future, doing more than taking hand-outs, and playing a significant role in developing their own systems and sense of civic responsibility.
Kurdistan Save the Children Comes through in the Clutch!
February 11, 2009 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment
We’ve been getting ready to send a group of Iraqi kids to life-saving heart surgeries in Turkey next week. After crunching the numbers, we thought that we could stretch and send six kids this month. But we had eight who desperately needed urgent surgeries.
Enter our local partner, Kurdistan Save the Children.
Normally, KSC helps contribute to the funding of a couple of kids each month. But they really stepped up to the plate and quadrupled their commitment for February.
Instead of helping two kids this month, they’re helping eight, contributing $2,500 towards each of their surgeries!
That’s $20,000 (or doo defter, as we like to say here in Sulaymaniyah)!
That means that instead of sending just six kids, we can now send eight over the next week, probably saving two extra lives in the process.
It also means that we’re seeing our vision of local solutions to local problems become a reality.
We know that the only hope for sustainable development is when people are empowered and encouraged to tackle the challenges they face together. That’s why we ask for a child’s extended family to contribute something to the cost of their surgery: we don’t want our generosity to rob them of their dignity or their responsibility. Instead, we want to strengthen families as a constructive element of civil society here in Iraq.
And it’s why we’re increasingly looking to form partnerships with Iraqi NGOs and businesses to support their efforts to care for the lives of their own people.
This month, we’re seeing it happen. Local contributions will cover almost half the cost of these eight surgeries. We’ve still got a long way to go, but it’s great to see how far we’ve come.
Valentine’s Day Focus: The Great Eight (Ahmad’s Condition)
February 2, 2009 by Jeremy · 1 Comment
His great arteries are switched around and in the wrong places. He has two holes in the wall of his ventricle, a hole in the wall of his atrium. Effectively, his heart is a big balloon without properly functioning walls and chambers like yours.
This alone results in exhaustion, frequent fainting, and the blue discoloration in his lips, hands, and feet from a lack of oxygen.
You remember oxygen? That stuff that we pretty much need to live. Ahmad needs it too, but his body cannot process it correctly due to the holes in his little heart.
You can follow Ahmad’s progress on Twitter (twitter.com/ahmadbakhtiyar) or via RSS.
Giant Need
See Ahmad’s campaign page on our website to make a contribution to his surgery.
Small Voice
His brown-booted feet hung limply from the chair. Most children wouldn’t be able to resist swinging their suspended legs back and forth in the quiet room surrounded by the seven dwarfs’ familiar faces, the Kurdish curls presumably spelling the names of Dopey and Sneezy and the rest, scattered among painted forest animals on all four walls of Dr. Aso’s combined office, waiting room and examination room. When the doctor was ready, the practiced hands of his mother removed his jacket from his tiny body, his boots from little clubbed blue feet which matched his hands, tormented eyes watching her above his oxygen deprived lips the shade of blueberries.
The doctor’s eyes widened and his brow furrowed as he looked at the Echo, turned to us and said, “This is a very serious case.” When we asked if he was inoperable the doctor shook his head and simply said again, “It is a very serious case…. I don’t know.” Whether she understood English or not Ahmad’s mother read all our expressions easily. She tipped her head to the heavens, possibly to pray, and more practically to give her eyes the opportunity to swallow the tears threatening to escape.
After the picture we snapped of him standing in front of a Kurdish Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, he hid his little face in his mother’s leg and wiped tears from his eyes…
Liz searched her purse for the third time looking desperately for something to give this poor child. She hoped a matchbox car or at least some stickers had magically appeared since she’d last checked, but her hands came up empty again. Her mind slowly absorbed the fact that even if a toy might have brought a temporary smile to his sad eyes, it would do nothing for his frail body. Instead she prayed for the Turkish doctor who will soon undergo the difficult task of setting to rights all that is wrong in Ahmad’s little Iraqi frame.
We’d like to ask you to be a part of Ahmad’s transformation. Of course, these are hard times. But if you can, please consider sacrificing that Ahmad might live.
PLC Gives $5,000 for Two Surgeries
July 10, 2008 by Jeremy · 1 Comment
Your purchases and donations continue to spur on and encourage local Iraqi NGOs to stand beside us as we help their children. In conjunction with Kurdistan Save the Children we’ve just sent another $5,000 Iraqi heart surgeries outside the country!
Kale, 12 years old
Kale has cerebral palsy but constantly has a huge smile. It is wonderful to see her mom put so much concern into her daughter in a culture where the mentally challenged are often abandoned. Kale had a large hole, 2.5 centimeters, in her upper ventricle. We helped send Kale to surgery on February 20th but she is only now receiving the money she needed for her surgery. With our partnering organization, we went ahead and pushed her surgery through and Kale returned to Iraq on May 6, 2008 with a healthy heart.
Sarah, 8 years old
The cardiologist at the March 2008 screening found that the heart of this frail little girl can be fully restored through surgery. Her internal organs are all on the wrong side (situs inversus) – sometimes surgeons will use a mirror to operate in this case! We hope to have her in surgery in July.
$16k and 21 Children to Heart Screening
March 12, 2008 by Jeremy · 443 Comments
Buy Shoes. Save Lives., Rayalla Organization, and Kurdistan Save the Children and other local partners recently raised and distributed over $16,000 to 21 children and their families so they could travel to Amman, Jordan for heart screening.
Some of these children will likely go straight to surgery due to the severity of their case. Others will be placed in line until funds are available to fund their surgeries – whether through donations or the revenues from our online store.
But Sometimes They Die
November 6, 2007 by Cody · 1 Comment
This morning I (Cody) went and saw three families with a social worker from Kurdistan Save the Children. My emotions are all worked up… I love these kids more than ever.
I went to four homes but only saw three children because one little girl had just died before we could even tell her story. One child’s dad works as a guard for the local hospital…he guards a hospital that can’t even help his son. That’s not ironic… it’s sick.
One of the boys is 4 years old and he has until he’s 6 before he won’t be able to walk because of his heart condition (unless he has surgery.)
I am now more passionate than ever about telling their story and putting together some sort of photo book….but it’s really up to KSC and whether or not they can consistently send a social worker with me. I need them to take me to these homes and help me tell their story. I’m up for it though… we will just pray that they see the value of telling these stories.
Everyone deserves a voice.
Three-Way Partnership Signed
November 4, 2007 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment
Cody Fisher with Dr. Noaman and Dr. Muhammad upon signing a three-way partnership deal between Buy Shoes. Save Lives., Kurdistan Save the Children, and Rayalla.
As of this afternoon KSC has a database of 1,617 children who need some sort of emergency medical attention. Over 700 of those cases are heart problems.
Estimations say more than 1,000 unregistered children have various kinds of urgent congenital heart diseases which will leave the children dead or paralyzed within weeks if not treated. The blood disease Thalassemia is also hitting children hard, with more than 508 cases in Sulaimanyia and 450 cases in Kirkuk. There is no cure in Iraq, and without help from abroad, these children are just waiting for death.
That’s why we’re so grateful for these partnerships and for your help!
Sincerely,
BSSL