Emergency Aid for Displaced People in Kurdish Iraq

IsraAID has been operating in the Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI) since 2014 providing emergency, educational and psychosocial support to the displaced people forced to flee their homes when the Islamic State (ISIS) attacked their communities. This three-pronged approach meets the needs of multiple facets of displaced people including school aged children, ISIS returnees, families, and the elderly.

IsraAID is implementing Psychosocial Support (PSS) programs with Yazidi returnees fleeing Mosul, and STEM programs in IDPs camps and primary schools in Erbil. In addition, IsraAID has been providing relief items, including food and non-food items, responding to the emergent needs in the area. 

IsraAID Iraq just started the second phase of our STEM education program: the full academic year of STEM eduaction in several schools in a few different camps. Each grade-level has their own curriculum, including four topics - engineering, math, technology and science. 

The schools are open for internally displaced (IDPs) primary school students that came to live in the camps with their families after being dispalced from Mosul and Nineveh, 2014. IsraAID's eductional program is highly needed in the camps as there are few schools in the region and high costs for transportation to other schools and school equipment.

The program is dependent on its 40 volunteering team leaders and teachers from the camps. Together they are teaching over 800 children in a few different camps. The age of the children range from 7 to 13 and there is an equal range of girls and boys. The children are eager to learn and are happily taking what they learn in theory, through books and the teachers, to the labs - testing, thinking and trying the teories in practise. The children surprise the teachers every day with their abilities and with their excitment they start every project they are instroduced to. 

IsraAID's staff and volunteers in Iraq believe that education and capacity building is a key aspect in the country to create peace and stability. We are grateful for your support to IsraAID's programs in Iraq - it helps these 800 children and 40 teachers to look forward and work for a better future. Thank you!

During the past winter months, IsraAID provided relief aid in the form of winterization items to the recently returned Yazidi families who escaped ISIS with nothing but the clothes on their back. 

Seventy-two Yazidi families escaping ISIS in Mosul arrived to the camp where IsraAID is working, after surviving the captivity and abuse that ISIS subjected them to. Most families have lost their male members, executed by ISIS, and women were used as sexual slaves and repeatedly raped and tortured, some coming back pregnant or with babies from the rapes. They arrived in the camp to finally be with their fellow Yazidi people who managed to escape earlier - they are missing everything, having escaped with no belongings whatsoever.

IsraAID distributed packages including winter clothes, coats, shoes, socks etc. Diapers and hygiene items were also provided. The distribution took place one the first day of a 3-days holidays for the Yazidie people. This holiday is considered the most important in the Yazidi calendar and the celebration was joyful as the familes came to collect their packages.

The Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI) has over a million internally displaced persons (IDPs) since January 2014 fleeing grave unrest in other parts of Iraq. Having witnessed family members kidnapped or murdered before their eyes, IDPs often arrive with severe trauma in their hearts. The Kurdish Regional Government, UN, and international and local NGOs are united in a desperate effort to accommodate Iraqi and Syrian IDPs. 

During the harsh winter, temperatures can reach as low as –15°C and as high as 45°C in the blistering summer, thus the prospects for IDPs arriving in these seasons are bleak. With depleting local resources and the aid community stretched thin, there is an urgent race against the clock to meet the basic needs of the hundreds of thousands of Yazidis, Christians, Turkmens, Kakaïs and Kurds who have fled ISIS and are desperately trying to survive. Every day that the violence continues in the besieged city of Kobani and elsewhere, thousands arrive every day seeking safety and shelter.

Thank you for supporting IsraAID and our mission in Northern Iraq! Your continued donations can help IsraAID send another team of psychologists to help prevent trauma and build recilience among young girls escaping ISIS captivity. Every donation makes a difference - thank you!