Like many Iraqis who worked with foreigners, Jeanette received personal death threats from insurgents who viewed her as a collaborator.
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Like many Iraqis who worked with foreigners, Jeanette received personal death threats from insurgents who viewed her as a collaborator. When her church was bombed in 2007, her parents sent her and her brother to Damascus, Syria. Today, jobless and hoping to get her parents out of Baghdad, she talks of wanting what everyone wants, “a job, a home, a safe place to live.” IOCC’s $1.98 million program to assist Iraqi refugees living in Syria provides emergency supplies to people like Jeanette, and tuition assistance and vocational training for young people.
References:·
IOCC & Local Orthodox Priests Reach Farmers in Greece’s Hard-Hit Ileia Province·
IOCC continues its relief and recovery program in Greece ·
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Helping Iraqi Refugees in Syria
Posted on Tue Feb 05 2008
International Orthodox Christian Charities - Executive Director's Report
January 2008
From the Executive Director:
IOCC Expands in Syria
As Americans follow daily news reports from the Iraq war, we remember that a byproduct of war is always the displacement of families from their homes. The United Nations estimates that some 4.2 million refugees and internally displaced persons have fled their homes in Iraq since 2003. In January,
IOCC staff visited our new project in Syria that provides assistance to Iraqi refugees as well as disadvantaged Syrians. This $1.98 million program, funded by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM), is a significant expansion of our operations in Syria. I was especially touched by the story of one woman named Jeanette who is receiving emergency supplies from IOCC. After receiving personal threats and the bombing of their church, she and her brother fled Baghdad in 2007. Although college-educated, she cannot find work in Syria since Iraqi refugees are not granted work permits. Now, she is hoping to get her parents out of Baghdad and immigrate to Canada. “I want what others want,” she told our staff, “a home, a job, a safe place to live.” Jeanette was speaking for all refugees — in Bosnia, Serbia, Georgia, Lebanon, the Holy Land, and elsewhere. For most refugees their best option is to return to their homes, but for many Iraqis that simply is not an option, given the country’s security situation. Syria is safer than Iraq, but without jobs it is less than an ideal situation. IOCC provides hope and aid in this situation: emergency supplies to meet people’s basic needs; tuition assistance so that children can resume their education; and vocational training to give young people more options. We hope this slideshow of Iraqi refugees who are participating in IOCC’s program will put a face on this crisis.
Yours in Christ
Constantine M. Triantafilou
Executive Director and CEO
Greece Wildfires Update
Five months after the Greece wildfires, IOCC continues its aid to farmers who lost livestock, pasturelands, and olive trees. IOCC’s latest distribution of 92 metric tons of animal feed in Zaharo, one of the areas most affected by fires, will benefit 279 farmers with about 18,500 animals. IOCC’s total relief and recovery program for Greece has exceeded $500,000 and has included distributions of feed totaling 704 metric tons and 20 metric tons of forage seed to allow farmers to permanently restore their grasslands. Executive Director Constantine Triantafilou, traveling with a fact-finding group from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese led by His Grace Bishop ANDONIOS of Phasiane in late January, found that winter feed remains the highest priority for affected farmers.
US Program Restarts Gulf Coast Initiative
IOCC’s US Program will be restarting its very successful initiative to build new homes on the Gulf Coast in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The “Volunteer in the Gulf” project recruits volunteers from parishes throughout the U.S. and Canada to travel to Saint Tammany Parish in Louisiana for one week of service to build new homes for individuals who were affected by the 2005 hurricane season. Over 200 IOCC volunteers representing Orthodox parishes, as well as other faith communities, put in 1,000 work days and helped to build 43 homes between 2006 - 2007. The program in 2008 will run from 24 February — 26 July. Interested participants can fill out an application by clicking here. For more information, please call US Program Coordinator Pascalis Papouras at 1-877-803-4622 or email
ppapouras@iocc.org
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