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Alternative Spring Break: College Students Giving Back in Flint
Masouna Kochaji is a Communications Coordinator at IRUSA. She recently attending Alternative Spring Break in Flint, MI and shares her experience with ReliefLab. In early March, I was sent to Flint, Michigan to accompany Howard University students on an alternative Spring Break. Having only heard stories of the conditions in Flint, I was anxious to see what the situation would be. The Howard students would be spending an entire week at various schools in Flint, and work with local students and staff in the classroom. While the students were going to support the community for a week, I’d only be on this trip for two days…and what I saw in those…
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East Africa: The Pain of Losing a Child
Tufail Hussain – Deputy Director, Islamic Relief UK – writes about meeting Fatouma during his recent visit to drought ravaged Somalia. Dotted around Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, are camps where countless desperate families arrive in search of food and water. It was at one of these camps, where teams from Islamic Relief regularly distribute food packs, that I first met Fatouma. Fatouma, from a village in the Burhakaba region, around 250km from Mogadishu, told me her harrowing story of survival through the catastrophic drought. “The drought has been with us for years, but in the last 12 months things became unbearable. My people are farmers, and our lives…
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Paving our Daughters’ Path towards a Suffer Free Future
When Khadijah Abdullah, Founder and Executive Director of RAHMA, first walked into the meeting room, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The meeting was titled: “Honoring our Daughters: The Effects of FGC in the DMV”. This struck me as odd. The Greater DC area? We keep hearing of practices of this nature in some countries, especially in Africa, but they always seemed very far away. Never in a thousand years would I have imagined that these practices could be performed here, at home. A few minutes before I joined the lecture, I did some research about FGC in America and found statistics I didn’t expect, especially that I knew that…
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A Global Thirst Trap: Breaking The Cycle of Poverty
One of the most used terms amongst me and my friends is the phrase “thirst trap”. It’s just a colloquial way of expressing a negative attribute that speaks to desperation, and it has nothing to do with water. Last week on World Water Day, I could not help but to think thirst trapping is a real subject matter in our world. Yet, thirst trapping is not a matter of desperation but it is a matter of cyclical poverty, a trap that continues to cycle without the ability to quench a thirst. From the moment, we are born, we are trapped by the element of water. As newborns, we are 75…
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On World Water Day, Drought Wreaks Havoc in East Africa
A terrible sense of déjà vu hangs over the Horn of Africa, where fears are growing that a severe drought could soon become a famine. Two years of below-average rainfall have pushed the self-declared independent state of Somaliland to the brink of starvation and nomadic families, who move with the seasons in search of fertile land and fresh water, have faced the heart-wrenching choice between feeding themselves and feeding their animals. The goats were first to die, followed by the cows. Now even the bodies of drought-resistant camels lie beside shriveled cacti at the side of the road. For families who rely on these animals for meat, milk, transportation and…
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Orville Disaster Response Reflections
Iqra Shaikh recently attended a disaster response deployment with IRUSA. She graduated from UC Berkeley and founded Major Probs, an organization dedicated to inspiring and empowering students globally. She reflects on her experience with ReliefLab. A few weeks ago, I had the honor and privilege of volunteering as a part of a Disaster Response Team aiding those impacted by the Orville Dam evacuations and the San Jose flooding. This experience opened my eyes and made me realize a few things—here are a few of my reflections and thoughts. 1. Humanity Transcends All Religions I have always believed in this notion, but it is something that I have rarely seen in…
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My Beloved Syria: I Will Not Forget You
2011 was the year I joined Islamic Relief USA. 2011 is also the same year that conflict erupted in my mother and father’s native Syria. Year after year of the conflict, the death and displacement of my people would only increase exponentially as time passed. First with Syrians pouring into neighboring countries like Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon to flee violence, and then expending to Europe and eventually even over the Atlantic ocean to America and Canada. With the massive exodus came huge media attention and much financial support to many humanitarian organizations trying to put a bandaid on the bleeding and lend a helping hand. Celebrities spoke out to bring…
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IRUSA Intern Reflects On Being “Too Much”
The name Kayla Vaughn Tolbert tells you nothing else but my name, my identifier. My name is simple but my identity is complex. Three sub identities are encompassed into Kayla Tolbert. Although we live in a contemporary social sphere aimed to break racial, sexual and religious barriers, I prefer to keep my barriers intact. I have three identities, two crowns (hair and hijab), and one voice. I am black, I am a woman and I am Muslim. For the ignorant, for the stubborn, for the misogynists, for racists, for the conservative, for the pacifists, I am too much. I was raised by a single mother of a black and Pakistani…
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Identity, Sincerity, and the Age of Social Media
A few months ago, I sat for dinner with a new friend of mine to break bread and get to know each other. There was, however, no bread involved–only noodles and a conversation that drifted to our common struggles as hijabis. We both shared our challenges to represent our true selves to others without feeling like what we’re doing is for others. Being hijabis, we’ve often felt that both Muslims and non-Muslims are quick to make assumptions about who we are and the kinds of opinions we hold. We’re often thought of as too conservative or not conservative enough. We find ourselves frequently feeling the need to correct these assumptions…
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6 Tips on Raising Humanitarian Children
From stories about wars and refugees to government corruption and crime rates, we are surrounded by what seems like a barrage of negative news stories these days. It can be scary being a parent in today’s world and as parents, we sometimes wonder what kind of world we’ve brought our children into. We don’t have to passively worry for our children, instead, we can try to raise them to be the good that may be lacking in the world. A humanitarian is a person who promotes human welfare and social reform, a person who is devoted to the health and happiness of other people. Explain to your children what a…
