-
Getting Gaza’s children off to a “Right Start” at school this year with IRUSA and ANERA
Laura McAdams is International Programs Coordinator at Islamic Relief USA. Back-to-school season is approaching and while many parents are preparing themselves for their children’s first day of school, only about a third of all four and five year olds in Gaza will be enrolled in preschool in the fall. The preschools that are available to children in Gaza are overcrowded and expensive: There are only four public, no-fee preschools in all of the West Bank and Gaza. Moreover, the quality of education children receive at these schools is reportedly poor. During school hours children have neither the opportunities or materials to be creative. They don’t even have places to play…
-
#Sharehumanity with Islamic Relief USA on World Humanitarian Day
Nada Shawish is communications specialist at Islamic Relief USA. 19 August 2015 – There’s nothing connecting humanitarians and the world better than social media today—And on World Humanitarian Day the United Nations has launched a call to people around the world to share stories of humanitarian heroism on their social media feeds. At Islamic Relief USA, my colleagues and I are dedicating our feeds to humanitarian heroes for World Humanitarian Day—Are you? In 2015 nearly 78 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance @islamicrelief #Dosomething #sharehumanity Islamic Relief USA humanitarians are tirelessly working in some of the most dangerous places in the world to reach people who need…
-
Tunisia’s Farmers Are Rebuilding Greenhouses and Building Up Biodiversity with Islamic Relief USA
Laura McAdams is an International Programs Coordinator at Islamic Relief USA. Mohamad was the first person I met with on my recent monitoring and evaluation trip to Tunisia. He is the community leader of a cooperative of small-scale farmers in the southern town of Faouar. Mohamad comes from a long generational line of farmers. I followed him on a dry dirt path to a field where rows of greenhouses stood. Through two consecutive years, southern Tunisia has suffered strong storms that destroyed or severely damaged greenhouse structures in the country. Farmers weren’t able to salvage their crops and resume farming activities because they couldn’t find the money they needed to…
-
TechGirls Are Tech-Social for Humanitarian Action at Islamic Relief USA
Nada Shawish is communications specialist at Islamic Relief USA. Fatima and Khadija are scrolling through their phones, checking tweets and Facebook statuses during a short break. “I am addicted to social media,” Fatima exclaims, her big eyes growing even bigger. She’s fifteen years old from Lebanon and she tells me that she dreams about working in digital technology someday. The girls are visiting Islamic Relief USA headquarters as part of the job-shadowing aspect of the TechGirls exchange program. TechGirls is a 3-week, international summer exchange program hosted by the U.S. State Department that selects promising girls from the Middle East and North Africa region and empowers them to to pursue…
-
From One Idea, Many Toys — And Many Smiles
Two weeks ago, on Eid, trucks headed out across the country, filled to the brim with colorful gifts packaged at Islamic Relief offices—making Eid brighter for thousands of children. Islamic Relief USA’s fourth annual toy drive brought together close to 150 volunteers in 16 cities to organize events collecting more than 3,000 toys for children who might not receive gifts otherwise … and it all stemmed from the initiative of one 11-year-old boy, just three years ago. Rauf’s family was sitting together one night in their brightly decorated living room, enjoying the Ramadan atmosphere and looking forward to Eid. The subject turned to the many new refugees in their community…
-
‘Finding a Way’: IRUSA Team Reports From Nepal
When the Islamic Relief USA team landed in Kathmandu, Nepal, four days after the earthquake in April, they were surprised to see that only one out of 10 or 20 houses showed signs of damage. Then they got into a car to drive closer to the epicenter. As the winding roads became steeper and more treacherous, the rubble piled higher on each side. There, they found deep gashes in the Earth, and entire villages flattened. “The saddest thing is that those affected the worst are usually the poorest people,” said IRUSA’s Ridwan Adhami. “They don’t have much to lose, and they still lost it all.” What they didn’t lose was…
-
Islamic Relief USA Joins CARE to Show Human Face of Syrian Conflict
Sharif Aly is Advocacy Counsel at Islamic Relief USA There are close to 4 million Syrians living as refugees. 4 million. The number is staggering and it continues to grow. The United Nations has called the Syrian conflict, the biggest humanitarian crisis of this generation. With no end in sight and most of the media’s attention focused on military and political issues, Syrians caught in the midst of this crisis are being forgotten. Individual stories that create empathy between people are being lost. On Friday, March 27, Islamic Relief USA participated in “Life in Refuge” an event at Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C., organized by CARE and with other NGO partners…
-
In A Wealthy World, It’s Wrong That So Many Women Live in Poverty
Christina Tobias-Nahi is Director of Public Affairs at Islamic Relief USA. Boston, MA – Oxfam America invited some of their regional “Sisters on the Planet Ambassadors” to participate in the 2015 International Women’s Day Right the Wrong workshop held in and around Harvard University’s Campus on March 6 and 7. This is one of many workshops in a series that was held around the United States. The training and advocacy event was focused on Protecting Resources and Rights in extractive industries in the developing world. More than 50 countries in the world are considered “resource-rich”, meaning they have significant oil, gas or mineral reserves. Yet in many of these countries, a large…
-
U.N. Agency Recognizes IRUSA for Work in Gaza
Nada Shawish is a communications specialist at Islamic Relief USA. Washington, D.C.—After the last episode of violence erupted in Gaza in summer 2014, Palestinians families in Gaza have struggled to rebuild their lives. Islamic Relief USA has been working directly with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to deliver vital aid to Palestinians in Gaza. On March 17, UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl presented IRUSA CEO Anwar Khan with an award recognizing IRUSA’s humanitarian efforts in Gaza. Islamic Relief USA donors have been supporting humanitarian projects in Gaza through UNRWA to help restore dignity to living conditions of Palestinians there. Emergency projects included food aid, hygiene and sanitation, and…
-
Syria’s Four Years: Are You Paying Attention to Your Role?
Nada Shawish is a Communications Specialist at Islamic Relief USA. I visited Jordan and Lebanon close to the beginning. The conflict had only begun to get deadly, and I was standing in Zataari camp in Jordan. The camp was filling with people just escaping from Syria—arriving with so little, living in the desert with a flimsy tent, stifled by heat and choked by dust, with absolutely nothing but the clothes on their back. I thought then, these people might not make it. So many of these people will not be able to survive these brutal conditions. I could barely stand or breathe after just an hour at Zataari. Zataari camp…
