Iraq Health Now ~ Please donate now!
The Declaration of Peace is pleased to promote the work of Iraqi Health Now, an organization providing humanitarian aid and medical supplies to families in Basra, Iraq.
Your donations to Iraqi Health Now are now urgently needed!
DoP National Coordinating Body members Christine Glaser and Timothy Baer met with Iraqi Health Now coordinator Kathy Murphy at the UFPJ National Assembly in December 2008. A few days later, the DoP National Coordinating Body agreed to publicize and promote the work of Iraqi Health Now (IHN), as well as the work of Direct Aid Iraq, aiding Iraqi refugees in Jordan. We have the highest confidence in both of these aid organizations.
This month, March 2009, there is an urgent opportunity to help Iraqis in the Basra area.
Haider Alsaedy and William Murphy from IHN are about to go to Basra on March 16th to distribute the medical supplies and equipment in the last IHN container shipment. William will film and document the activities while there.
They will also be buying food while over there to give to needy families.
Two NGO’s, MercyCorps and Life for Relief and Development in Basra will be trained by Haider in how to use and help distribute 120 water purification units.
This has been very costly!
Please donate now to Iraqi Health Now so that they can do as much as possible on this trip.
Please write your check to:
Healing the Children (with Iraqi Health Now in the memo line)
And mail it to:
Iraqi Health Now
P.O. Box 161
Paw Paw, Michigan 49079
Your contributions to Iraqi Health Now will make it possible for them to continue their work, and to hopefully increase their aid shipments to Iraq.
Learn more about IHN at their website: http://iraqihealthnow.org And read about IHN and their recent work, below.
Iraqi Health Now is dedicated to providing humanitarian aid and medical supplies to families in Basra, Iraq. It is a special project of the non-profit organization, Healing the Children-Michigan/Ohio located in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
A Kalamazoo, Michigan resident named Haider Alsaedy made a trip home to Basra for the first time in 16 years in the spring of 2006. When he returned to Kalamazoo he starting looking for organizations that could help the people in his community that are suffering for many reasons. His nephew is Dr. Dhergam Moshen in the Basra Teaching Hospital. Dr. Moshen told Haider about some of the most urgently needed medical and humanitarian supplies.
Iraqi Health Now was then created in Kalamazoo and started to work with International Aid , a mission resource center in Spring Lake, Michigan. They had some of the medicines and medical supplies that we needed at a fraction of the cost. We purchased medical supplies from them such as needles, syringes, bandages, over the counter medicines, and prescription medicines and mailed over 3,500 pounds to the hospital in Basra, Iraq via DHL mail.
Some of those supplies were also donated to us by a local Kalamazoo hospital. The doctors in Basra always send us photos of our boxes arriving and of the contents being used. Haider Alsaedy has also visited the hospital since we have been sending supplies and filmed the doctors there talking about their needs.
In the spring of 2008 we shipped our first semi-sized (20’) shipping container full of supplies and equipment. We sent wheelchairs, crutches, clothing, medical supplies, and over a hundred walkers. Haider visited Basra last spring and was told by residents that their two biggest problems were lack of clean water and electricity.
At the same time International Aid (www.internationalaid.org) started to carry HydrAid™ BioSand Water Filters that provide clean and safe drinking water. We purchased 120 of these systems and on January 11, 2009, we sent our second container. This time it was 40’ long and contained the purifiers and over 180 walkers, crutches, wheelchairs, sweaters, blankets, and some donated medical supplies.
Haider Alsaedy and William O. Murphy will meet the container when it arrives and help to distribute the supplies and teach residents how to use and care for the purifiers as they were trained at International Aid.
On this trip we will be teaming with MercyCorps of Basra and Life for Relief and Development in Basra as they will be helping us to find locations for the water filters and helping us to distribute them. We are very excited about these new relationships.
Our project has received support from Michigan Senator Carl Levin. We have also received official documents from the doctors at the Humanitarian Support League for Cancer Diseases in Basra which is a registered NGO in Iraq. We were made aware of the high cancer rate there, especially among children, and the need for cancer medicines but as yet we haven’t had resources to help with that need.
It is our feeling that through people to people initiatives like Iraqi Health Now, donors can directly see the positive effects of their donations and the demonstrated goodwill between our countries. All donations are tax deductible and 100% of the donations will go to supplies that meet the urgent needs of the Iraqi people and for delivery of those supplies to Iraq.
Please contact me if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Kathy Murphy, Iraqi Health Now Coordinator
Phone: 269-599-2350
Email: iraqihealthnow@verizon.net