Ben Irwin For every refugee. For every family fleeing war. For everyone looking for a place to belong.
2019 is the year we remake home.
For the first time in 15 years, Iraq is not at war. The war in Syria is reaching a decisive point. But ISIS is still a threat. Whole neighborhoods and communities are still destroyed. Many families still have nothing to return home to.
But home can be remade. And it can start with just one thing. It can start with you.
Here’s how we can remake home for war-torn families in 2019.
Replant Families
Before there was war in Syria, there was drought. A once-in-a-thousand-years drought. Almost all the livestock died. Most farms collapsed.
We can renew the earth after war. We will partner with hundreds of returning families, providing the seeds and tools they need to revitalize their farmland.
We’ll provide pregnant sheep to families who spent years besieged by ISIS. Within months, their flocks will multiply, and their future will take shape.
We’ll help families in the Aleppo countryside grow mushrooms in the safety of their own homes—in a part of Syria where the fields are still littered with mines and too dangerous to farm.
These families will have more than just a source of food. They’ll have a source of stability. Income they can use to send their children school. To dig in and stay, rather than give up than flee.
A war that began with a drought will end with a harvest.
Repair Houses
In some of Aleppo’s hardest-hit neighborhoods, a few windows and doors can make the difference between a pile of rubble and a livable home.
We’ve already repaired dozens of Aleppo homes—replacing doors and windows, refurbishing kitchens and bathrooms—allowing families to return home. In 2019, we’ll repair dozens more.
We’ll also continue providing generators to power one Aleppo neighborhood, lighting families’ homes and keeping them safe.
Just blocks away, it’s a different story: empty streets, desolate buildings. But here in this neighborhood, life is returning. Families are coming back. Businesses are opening. Schools are back in session.
And it can start with a repaired home.
Restore a Family’s Health
Hospitals and medical clinics were more than collateral damage in Syria and Iraq. All too often, they were targets.
After seven years of war, fewer than half the hospitals in Syria are fully functional. Many families in remote communities in Iraq, still vulnerable to ISIS attacks, have to travel hours to receive basic medical care.
But we can rebuild—one hospital, one clinic at a time. We can invest in sustainable healthcare close to home, making it safer for families to return.
In 2019, we will provide trained doctors and nurses, local enough to reach the patients where they are, rather than waiting for the need to reach them.
We’ll disrupt the emotional and psychological trauma of war, too—empowering women and girls to protect themselves from violence and child marriage. We’ll continue to provide educational, therapeutic play for hundreds of refugee children of all ages.
Renew the Future
Decades of war and sanctions have crippled the local economy, cutting off young people from opportunities the rest of us take for granted. When many of them fled violence, they left behind not only their homes, but their education… and their future.
We can change that—in classrooms and tech hubs across Iraq. Our four WorkWell campuses have already given more than 1,000 students the opportunity to work from anywhere, using just a laptop or smartphone, as coders, designers, and freelancers. They’re able to access the global digital marketplace that was previously closed to them.
We can jump-start the future for even more displaced students in 2019. You can help us open even more WorkWell campuses in the very places in Iraq where extremist groups prey on the lack of opportunity. And for the first time, you can help us bring this opportunity to young people in Syria, as well.
Restart a Career
Something remarkable happens when we step across the threshold, sit down with our refugee friends, listen, and dream about the future together. We discover what they’re capable of. And we can help them turn that passion into a business—so they can provide for themselves.
We’ve helped hundreds of refugees start their own businesses, and in 2019, we’ll do the same for hundreds more. We will give these families what they need to take back control of their lives.
We’ll help many displaced families launch a second or third successful business, so they are less vulnerable to changes in season or circumstance. We’ll help women discover their own calling—not as helpless victims, but as flourishing entrepreneurs.
With each new business, we can transform a colorless refugee camp into a vibrant home. We can build a future that lasts.
We can remake opportunity. We can remake hope. We can remake the future.
In 2019, we can remake home.
This is what can happen—what is happening in Iraq, in Syria. It’s what can happen in our own hearts. You can remake home. For refugees and war-torn families, for the broken and the searching. And for you.
