January 15, 2022

Life in refugee camps is made tolerable, in large part, due to programs NGOs bring to entertain and educate the children.


This is Bersive Refugee Camp just outside of Zakho. We were guests of Save the Children and Barzani Charity Foundation touring the camp’s little community center.  Here the young girls are preparing for the international girls day celebration and learning a fun dance to do outside for all the other refugees.


Jim just outside the little community center in the camp.


At Domiz Camp we were able to give some little bears to the children whose mothers were in the class on domestic abuse and child protection.


Here are the mothers learning that they do not have to take domestic abuse and how to interact with their children in the challenging life in the camp.  We got to speak with a few of them.  They said they were very grateful for the class.


Here are the children with their new bears.  The children were very shy and a bit suspicious of adults.


The camp was able to make one fun, bright room for the smaller children to learn and play.


Here are some of the teachers.  The young man in the red shirt is a refugee himself who has worked on his education and received a paying job at the camp.


Before leaving one of the camps we caught sight of an LDS wheelchair being loaded into a pickup truck that someone had received some time ago.  LDSC is making an impact in Iraq!


The locations of the camps are not usually in ‘attractive’ locations….


The Andersons (of our wheelchair program) shared this photo of a mother in the camp who carried her adult disabled son for a wheelchair fitting…. but she arrived late and all the chairs were gone…


Here we are again at Sharya Camp where all the residents lived in these types of tents until the devastating fire and our LDS Charity stepped in to replace those burned tents with concrete foundation dwellings.  We had brought Sister Bingham and Sister Eubank here during their visit to see the results of our funds.  Following are a few more pictures from the camp and the great people living under these conditions.


Here is a beautiful 3 generation family living together in one of the new dwellings we provided.


A portrait of the granddaughter...


...and the grandmother ...very noble in her demeanor...


Cleanliness of the area outside the home is so important to the Kurds and Yazidis...


Jim with several of the children who found our ‘American look’ so very fascinating...


Another refugee woman cleaning her floors and doorway…


A little girl playing with the water and ‘cleaning up’….


Unfortunately the water is not always the most sanitary...


A boy and his chicken... in the dwelling...


This is a typical room... everyone eats on the floor for their meals. At night the pillows are put down on the floor and everybody sleeps on the floor.


A German company provided an air conditioner for each of the dwellings we built...


The sign indicating the dwelling was provided by LDS Charity and Barzani Charity Foundation.  Each dwelling has a sign like this.


A typical camp ‘street’ in this rebuilt area with improvised clotheslines...


This gentleman was happy to meet us and wanted us to see the new dwelling ‘we’ had built for him...


He was very grateful and very proud of his home.  Here again everything takes place in this one room... eating on the floor, sitting on those pillows to converse, and then sleeping on those pillows at night...


Some refugee girls with their new bears!


Here is a news picture of the camp as it was burning...


Some of our fellow traveling companions on the road to the Camp...


Heading through Zakho we encountered these life-size Peshmerga statues to honor those who fought for the freedom of Kurdistan.


...and heading home from the camps on the two-lane highways we always have to be alert to oncoming (sheep) traffic 🐑 🐑!



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