Supporting Syrian refugees in Iraq

Peace Winds has been working in Iraq for years to aid Syrian refugees seeking safe haven there and, more recently, to support Yezidi Iraqis who fled Islamic State. This advances American interests, so we have relied on U.S. government support, but the January 24 freeze on foreign assistance now forbids us from spending these funds on programs, payroll, or other expenses. This has forced us to shutter all of our programs, so we need your help to aid the needy communities that we serve.

Starting in 2018, Peace Winds began working in seven refugee camps supporting the roughly 270,000 Syrians in Iraq. We began by building safe and secure shelters to replace the tents they had been living in and making sure they had proper electricity and plumbing. This has been especially crucial for multi-generational families living in small one- or two-room homes, especially during summer months when Iraq temperatures often reach well over 100.

We expanded that work by offering vocational training on construction skills and creating tool service centers—essentially lending libraries for tools—so that refugees can improve their own homes and also break into the field of construction. There is high demand for skilled labor in the construction field, so this empowers refugees to become economically self-reliant and contribute to their communities. Peace Winds recently began rolling out similar programs for internally displaced Yezidis to equip them with marketable skills as well as the know-how that will help them rebuild their damaged houses when they move back to their ancestral homeland in the Sinjar area.

Throughout all of this, Peace Winds has treated its work in Iraq not as charity, but as a partnership. Rather than hiring construction companies to repair refugee homes, we instead use a cash-for-work approach through which refugees with construction skills are paid to carry out the work, increasing employment in the community.

There is a disproportionately high number of refugees with disabilities, which is no surprise since they fled a warzone. So, we pay refugee workers who go through our trainings to practice construction skills by installing wheelchair ramps, bathroom handrails, and other accessibility upgrades for homes and public facilities in the camps. This vastly improves the lives of people in wheelchairs, senior citizens, and others, while lightening the caregiving responsibility of families so that they can spend more time at work.

Our work has made us aware of how many refugees need wheelchairs and other assistive devices, and we were already planning to launch a small fundraising campaign to ask you to help us purchase new wheelchairs for refugee children and adults. However, the funding freeze has upended everything for us, so we want to expand this to request. New donations to our “Supporting Syrian refugees in Iraq” project will be used to distribute wheelchairs and, if more is donated, to keep our vocational centers open and staff employed. We are so grateful for your support.