Irbil, Iraq -- The sign in Arabic on a door of a single room school reads Our school is Love and Peace. About a month ago the now 20 happy and rambunctious children behind the door were fleeing with their parents for their lives from the terror group ISIS. On this day theyre learning how to brush their teeth, read, write and other normal childrens subjects despite the deadly lessons of the previous months. The school is run by a social worker named Aida from Baghdad who has lived in Sweden for 25 years until she felt compelled to come back to her home country Iraq and provide humanitarian aid for these children who are now considered Internally Displaced People by the UN. The school room resides in a rare place place by Middle Eastern standards: a communist compound also known as a Communist Clubhouse. The property is owned by a gentleman named William, happy to be communist and even happier to provide the use of his property for the aid and comfort of the UN designated IDPs. Thus far he has received scant aid from the UN and has spent most of his money on their care. On the property are about 10 large tents where families have built a temporary life under the blazing Iraqi sun. The tents swelter in the midday heat with no air and no electricity. This camp is better off than most other camps where an estimated 500,000 people are running out of food, water and have no medical care and live without the security of the City. Next door to the communist camp is the United States Embassy where announcements of potential incoming missile attacks blare across the compound forcing all the IDPs into the hardened protections of the Communist Camp clubhouse. On site periodically and temporarily is James Price a prouder than proud American and Capitalist here with his humanitarian aid team DART, Disaster Aid Rescue Team operated by his parent company Death Valley Media (DVM). On this mission DART is made up of six Americans and one Australian. They are at the Communist Clubhouse Camp building a concrete drainage ditch to drain the toilet water away from the showers which are located next to one another. Price takes pride in being able to reach into places traditional aid groups fear to tread. With more than $30,000 Prices team has already brought more than just concrete. They have provided to this and other camps locally sourced food, water, medicine, and the service of a doctor. Nobody has come to help these people, said Price. We wanted to come here and prove it could be done. And Price has proved his point well. Hes provided 1000 pairs of shoes, tons of food, 1000s of dollars in medical supplies and medicines to three camps in Ankawa Province. The UN and other aid groups want to pay to ship food and then pay bloated staffs to administer, said Price. We source everything locally and can get much more for much less. Much more is needed as winter approaches. It gets really cold here in the winter time, said Price. The rats here are bigger than cats and Ive seen them eat through walls to get into a warmer place. Refuges tents offer little protection from the cold or the rats. The needs will only increase for these people who have entered a city whos public services are limited and stretched thin and where the of supply of cash almost nil from private enterprise, residents or from the refugees. Once winter sets in their needs will not only be food and water but blankets and coats, said Price. This crisis will only get worse as time goes on and the diseases are just starting. Price spent three years in Erbil as a military contractor running Personal Protection and Mobile Scouts across Iraqis treacherous highways. He now focuses on humanitarian aid missions with the generous donations of the survivalist, personal protection and gun owner community. The aid provided to this and other camps are due to the generous donations of many conservatives that love guns and capitalism, said Price. While IDPs here in Iraq and in particular from Erbil await the charge of humanitarian aid groups to come to their aid and to start putting more pressure on the US government to act against the terror threat that created this crisis Price will continue to operate in defiance of the fear many of aid groups feel that keep them bound to the safety of American borders. While they wait the camps will continue to fill and Aidas school will continue teaching peace and love under the specter of war and fear. I came here because these are my people and they needed help, said Aida. I took off from work, brought coloring books and started teaching.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 12:48:19 +0000
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