SOUTHERN OREGON LOCALS UNDERTAKE IRAQI OUTREACH PROGRAM

Bashar Mutlak, 31.10.2007 09:18

Local Medford Resident and Co-Director of the Collateral Repair Project, Mary Madsen, along with Founder/Co-Director, Sasha Crow, have pledged to bring the voice of the Iraqis to the forefront of the international community. On October 28th, 2007, Mary and Sasha traveled to Amman, Jordan to interview and film hundreds of Iraqi refugees and families living in exile, in a bid to create a wealth of knowledge and awareness within North America and internationally through the Collateral Repair Project  http://www.collateralrepairproject.org

Sasha Crow & Mary Madsen

The Collateral Repair Project is a grassroots movement, created to address the catastrophic displacement of the four million plus Iraqis who had to leave behind their homes and communities because of the violence caused by the invasion and occupation of their country. To put this into perspective, if an equivalent number were displaced in the United States, it would be over 50 million people. CRP brings Iraqis and coalition citizens together in order to create solutions in response to the terrible damage done to Iraqi civilians.

“Iraqi refugees now account for 20% of Jordan's population, placing a huge strain on the country's already beleaguered resources,” explains Sasha. “These refugees are not privy to the regular rights of Jordanians, and until recently, Iraqi children were unable to attend schools.” Additionally, Iraqi refugee families are restricted from working in Jordan, succumbing many to live in the shadows of society and undertake working operations strictly from home.

“Before escaping Iraq, most of those who fled to Jordan were well-educated, professional, middle class citizens,” adds Mary. “Now, as undocumented residents barred from employment, they cannot practice their professions and must settle for whatever menial labor they can hope to find.”

This situation “re-traumatizes, again and again, an already traumatized people,” says Sasha. “These are men, women, and their children who, just like us, only want to live secure lives - the lives they had built for themselves before their country and those lives were devastated under U.S.-led occupation. We simply cannot continue to ignore this problem, while millions of Iraqis suffer due to our complacency.”

In addition to documenting Iraqi refugee stories, Mary and Sasha plan on meeting other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to explore potential partnerships, assess available services and opportunities for refugees, and set a plan for future projects with other interested groups. Sasha will also be teaching basic metal-smithing and bead working classes for the Women's Craft Co-op, a group of Iraqi refugee women learning new craft skills in an effort to support their families through fair trade marketing.

Mary concludes, “The United Nations has declared the Iraqi refugee situation to be the fastest growing humanitarian crisis in the world. Yet, the international response has been paltry to non-existent. It is essential that this crisis be brought to the attention of citizens everywhere. Since governments are doing little to alleviate the problem, it is up to individuals and humanitarian organizations to take the initiative. This can't be done on the scale or urgency that is needed without the media and their cooperation. It is imperative that we work together.”

Mary and Sasha encourage all interested parties to contact them via e-mail, at  info@collateralrepairproject.org.

e-mail:: info@collateralrepairproject.org
Homepage:: http://www.collateralrepairproject.org

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Mary & Sasha LIVE 10/18 - Brain Labor Report 17.10.2007 - 15:43 Wes Brain hosts BLR radio show KSKQ Internet-Radio Mary Madsen and Sasha Crow will be "live" 10/18/07 at 7:00 a.m. on KSKQ  http://www.kskq.org The Brain Labor Report is live every M - F @ 7:00 a.m.. Shows are archived at the Brain Labor Report webpage  http://www.kskq.org/blr 7 AM on KSKQ / Internet Radio> Listen to the live interview 18.10.2007 - 09:18 Here is a link to the Brain Labor Report interview with Sasha Crow and Mary Madsen, recorded live, Thursday morning show. Please forgive the poor sound quality during part of the interview...  http://www.kskq.org/audio-archive/blr/blr20071018.mp3 pogo> Reports from Amman- the Iraqi refugee crisis 26.10.2007 - 07:46 Dear Friends, Sasha & Mary, of the Collateral Repair Project, will be arriving in Amman Jordan on October 29th. Mary will return to the PNW on Nov 19. Sasha will return January 14. While there, we will be documenting individual stories of some of the almost 1 million Iraqis who have fled the chaos and danger of Iraq to Jordan. We will be writing weekly reports from Amman. If you would like to receive these, please send an email to  info@collateralrepairproject.org with "subscribe" in the subject line. In peace & action, Sasha & Mary -- "You cannot witness all of these things and do nothing" [ Dr. Intisar Mohammed - from documentary: Iraq - The Women's Story ] "We don't need spectators to witness our suffering and tell us they feel with us. We need help to put a stop to it." [Raja Shehadeh - from When The Birds Stopped Singing] "Of course, let us have peace," we cry, "but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties ... " There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison, and death in its wake. [ Dan Berrigan - in No Bars to Manhood ] From Sasha and Mary> US Accused of Ignoring Crisis for 4.5 Million 14.11.2007 - 12:31 US Accused of Ignoring Crisis for 4.5 Million Displaced Iraqis By Hannah Allam McClatchy Newspapers Tuesday 13 November 2007 Cairo, Egypt - The U.S. government is "unforgivably slow" in resettling Iraqi refugees and has failed to coordinate with its Arab allies to address the suffering of an estimated 4.5 million displaced Iraqis, according to a report released Tuesday by a leading Washington-based refugee advocacy group. Nearly five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has made little effort to speed up relief for a population that's growing more vulnerable by the day, Refugees International concluded after its most recent trip to Iraqi refugee communities in the Middle East. The group's advocates said the White House appeared oblivious to the magnitude of the war's humanitarian disaster. "The first reason for this is the lack of political will," said Kristele Younes, a co-author of the Refugees International report. "Until very recently, the Bush administration never even acknowledged the humanitarian crisis because they were concerned that it would be interpreted as acknowledging failure in Iraq. And President Bush still has yet to acknowledge that there are now almost 5 million Iraqis who've had to leave their homes." The report is critical of the United States' inability to make good on its resettlement promises. Despite talk of allowing 7,000 Iraqi refugees into the U.S. this year, only 1,608 had been admitted by the end of September and another 450 entered in October. By comparison, the U.S. government has resettled nearly three times that many Iranians this year - 5,481 - even though refugees from Iran share the same stories of religious and political persecution as their Iraqi neighbors, Younes said. Arguments that Iraqi refugees could pose a security risk also would apply to Iranians, she added. All refugees admitted to the United States for resettlement undergo security screenings. State Department officials said the interviewing and resettling of Iraqi refugees had been hampered by the need to set up refugee operations in countries where the United States had none, such as Syria, as well as stringent post-9/11 security measures at the Department of Homeland Security. The officials also said the Bush administration never pledged to resettle 7,000 Iraqi refugees in the 2007 fiscal year. That figure represented the number of refugees to be referred to U.S. authorities for potential resettlement, they said. "While the situation was not good for quite a period of time, that has been arrested and is turning in a positive direction," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council. He said the Syrians had presented a major obstacle by refusing to allow U.S. interviewers into the country to help process Iraqi refugee cases. On a trip to Jordan this week, where about 1 million Iraqis have sought refuge, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described the resettlement process as "efficient, quick, but thorough." "We're proud of our record and we plan to build on it," DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said. "At the same time, we must guard against the possibility that hiding among the refugees are people who are neither refugees nor Iraqis, for that matter. Security as well as sanctuary has to drive our refugee policy." With just one Cairo-based coordinator handling cases for 15 countries, the U.S. lacks the human resources to keep up with the thousands of referrals that continue to pile up from the United Nations' refugee agency, according to Refugees International. Officials at the Arab League, which represents 22 nations, said Americans had never approached them about Iraqi refugees. Countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt - all close American allies - receive little or no assistance from the U.S. and have begun refusing to admit Iraqis, arresting those who overstay their visas and pressuring all but the wealthiest to return to their chaotic homeland, according to the report. Refugees International said American political and diplomatic support for Arab host countries "remains conspicuously absent." Meanwhile, the report continues, the U.S. is reluctant to recognize that its longtime foe Syria stands alone in its open-door policy for Iraqis. Even that escape route is in jeopardy now, with Syria overwhelmed by some 1.4 million Iraqi refugees. Syria briefly closed its borders last month at the request of the Iraqi government, but is once again admitting Iraqis on three-month visas. The lives of displaced Iraqis are extremely tenuous. In most Arab countries, they aren't allowed to work, attend public schools or have access to public health care. They're dogged by a reputation of being more affluent than other Arabs, though even those who fled with money are struggling to make their savings last. Samir Sadeq Mahmoud, a 40-year-old Sunni Muslim, left Baghdad with his wife and four children a year ago, when Shiite Muslim militias seized control of their neighborhood. The family settled in Cairo and has scrimped by ever since. Mahmoud said they used to receive some cash and medical assistance from a local charity, but he calculated that the money spent on taxis to the office on the other side of town nearly matched what they received in aid. They no longer make the trek, and Mahmoud said the family was days away from being penniless. "None of my children go to school because I can't afford it," Mahmoud said. "I don't even have enough money to feed them." Khaled Ezzat, a middle-aged man who worked as a driver for a U.S. television network's Baghdad office, left Iraq last year after each of his three sons received a death threat that mentioned his job with Americans. The family went to Syria, but left after a short time because they'd heard of better job opportunities in Egypt. Instead, Ezzat said, they plunged into an even more hostile and expensive environment than the one in Damascus. "It was a big mistake to leave Syria. A big mistake," Ezzat said. "Everything in Syria was better: better people, better government, weather, food, schools. Egyptians think all Iraqis coming here are pulling an oil well behind them. Every day, I discuss going back with other Iraqis, but there's no money." (David Lightman, Warren P. Strobel and Marisa Taylor in Washington and McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Miret el Naggar in Cairo contributed to this article.) ------- (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) from T R U T H O U T> Mary Madsen reports back - Nov. 15, '07 15.11.2007 - 12:30 Hello all, Just thought I'd let you all know that I'm still alive. Sasha and I have been busy seeing many families and attending meetings with various agencies and NGOs. Today we sat in on a meeting at UNICEF and listened to the plans for distribuiting school aid to Iraqi children from funds that actually were approved since Aug, but lots of foot dragging on the part of the Jordanian Dept of Education. Finally the initial distribution is set for next week. The meeting itself was sort of out of our jurisdiction but it provided us with a couple of options for networking. There were 3 women reps from an ngo called Jordanian Women's Union, which we hope to link with so CRP can start a community Center for Iraqi families and we also spoke briefly with a rep from Save the Children. We've visited a lot of our project families in the past week and are now starting to visit new families to evaluate for future projects. As you can imagine, some of the stories we hear are tragic. Hopefully you can read more in the report we are in the process of publishing on our website,  http://www.collateralrepairproject.org We had hoped to send out a report to our supporters before this but there have been problems with internet access, downloading photos and just plain finding time to write it all up. But Sasha is busy publishing it right now from her own laptop, here at the internet cafe we are sitting in. We haven't found access to wi fi so I can't send photos but you'll see it all when I get home. The best of the photos will be in our report on the website. I'll have to put together a slideshow or powerpoint when I get home and I hope someone can help me with that. I'm such a technological novice. I should get that done fairly soon, so that I can start giving presentations before the "newness" has passed. Any volunteers? The weather has turned quite cool, even cold at night. My feet are cold right now in this internet cafe. Last night there was a brief rain, but all was dry by morning and the sky was an incredible clear blue. I had expected Amman to be under a pall of smog but we have seen none of that. Likely things are different in the heat of summer. That's all for now. I'll be home sometime Monday, the 19th. I arrive in Portland on the 18th at 11:30 pm so will spend the night and rent a car the next morning. Likely I'll sleep well into Tuesday, just to catch up from the very long flight. Wishing you all well, Salaam, Mary ps; We've linked up with a young Canadian woman who has the room next to us at the hotel. She writes books for children ages 8-14, using interviews of chidlren from war zones. She was in Syria and now in Amman interviewing Iraqi refugee children. She joins with us on our home visits so we work together, through Faiza of course, gathering their stories for our respective projects. I haven't had a chance yet to google her name but if anyone cares to, it's Deborah Ellis. She's published several books. It's good to network!! Mary Madsen>