Dear friends, we need your help!
For the last week Iraqi Kurdistan has been hit by heavy snow and harsh freezing weather. On Friday morning the team at JHK’s clinic at Bajed Kandala 2 came to work only to discover that the roof had collapsed under the weight of snow and ice. Thankfully nobody was hurt.
Thanks to the resourcefulness of Salih and the team we have been able to open a temporary clinic in nearby disused cabins, ensuring some primary health services remain available to the over 5,000 residents of BK2 as they endure the icy blizzards in their flimsy tents. But this is not a sustainable situation! We need to get the clinic up and running again as soon as possible. We estimate the cost of materials and labour to safely repair the roof and supporting structures at $6,000. JHK is launching an emergency appeal to raise the funds needed.
WHY IS THE CLINIC SO IMPORTANT?
JHK first opened a primary health centre at Bajed Kandala Camp, near the triangle border with Syria and Turkey, five years ago to provide basic health care to this community of Yazidis driven from their homes by ISIS’ genocidal terror attacks.
The clinic, like the camp, was supposed to be temporary. Our priority was to relieve the immediate emergency, to start delivering services quickly to as many patients as possible with the limited resources available.
The months turned into years. The promises of safe return to Sinjar were repeated at regular intervals, but never realised. The camp remains, so we remain. Thanks to our extraordinarily skilled and dedicated local team, and the generous support of our friends around the world, JHK has been able to expand our range of services and become a central part of community life. What began as a simple waiting area and doctor’s office now houses: multiple treatment rooms, a laboratory, a pharmacy, an IT centre, classrooms, and a women’s centre.
Visit on an ordinary weekday and you might see, in addition to the steady stream of patients seeking treatments for everyday ailments: a tailor teaching local women to sew, the girl’s football squad warming up for a match, children playing on the swings or practising a dance routine, young people taking a programming class taught remotely from Dublin or being taught English by a volunteer from Australia or just borrowing a book from the library…
This is about more than emergency relief. It is about resilience, community and empowerment: giving displaced people a dignified life and preparing them for the future.
PLEASE GIVE $10 OR WHATEVER YOU CAN TO THE EMERGENCY REPAIR FUND AND HELP KEEP THE BK2 CLINIC OPEN.
HOW TO DONATE:
Facebook: go to fundraiser
Swish: 123 271 14 06
Bankgiro: 357-9208
Information about more ways to give, including international bank transfer: https://www.jointhelpkurdistan.org/support-us/
Please mark all donations “BK REPAIR”
