Iraq Veterans' Refugee Aid Association (IVRAA)
Greetings and welcome to our website.
Members of IVRAA performed their first humanitarian mission to Amman, Jordan, in mid-August 2008. It was successful and can be read about in our articles posted in the "Newsletters" section of our website.
Currently, we are preparing for our second humanitarian mission to the Middle East in late 2009 / early 2010.
Jordan has provided refuge to some three-quarters of a million Iraqis who have fled the war in their homeland. The main aim of the first mission was to provide assistance to them, and to raise awareness of their plight.
The motivating factor behind the mission to Jordan was a sense that the United States owes a debt to the Iraqi people.
In Amman we met with officials from the US embassy, Jordanian government, Iraqi diplomats, the UN, IMO, NGOs and also were graciously welcomed into the very modest homes of refugee families.
IVRAA is a non-profit, non-partisan organization set up by Veterans of the Iraq war.
Its immediate aim is to help Iraqis who have been forced to flee violence in their homeland, and to give veterans another avenue to heal from the wounds left by war.
We intend for this organization to be long-lived. When the Iraq war is over and the plight of displaced Iraqis has been resolved, we hope IVRAA will shift its focus to other refugee groups -- who unfortunately will always exist.
Donations to IVRAA are US tax deductible. Please visit the donations tab above for more information on how to help us help the refugees.
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Recent articles published:
"The Myth of Collateral Damage: Truth, Consequences and a Challenge to 'Say It Plain'" - The Huffington Post October 30, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luis-carlos-montalvan/the-myth-of-collateral-da_b_340421.html
Maybe mainstream media's penchant for superficial and divisive reporting, combined with the Department of Defense and State's culture of secrecy, have created a popular vocabulary that reduces wide-scale human suffering to a necessary and insignificant cost, the equivalent of a few broken eggs. Maybe there are too many reporters telling the same story from a barely-sourced news feed instead of reporting from the ground, showing and telling the stories as they unfold.
"Finding Their Way Home: The Future of Displaced Iraqis" -
Daily Babel
August 2009
http://dailybabel.com/?p=4073
It made perfect sense when we were in Iraq: send the Iraqi people away from their homes and communities to protect them from the violence we knew was coming. Their homes would be destroyed. Whole neighborhoods could be gone. It made sense for them to move quickly – to pack what little they could get into their suitcases and trunks, and drive — or, more often walk…well, where? We were sending them “away.” Where was “away?”
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"Muna's Sorrow" - Iraqi Refugee Stories
http://www.iraqirefugeestories.org/writers.html
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Two months before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, 31-year-old Muna traveled to Jordan to marry an Iraqi who had applied for asylum in Canada. Once in Jordan, she learned that her brothers, still in Iraq, had been taken away by Saddam Hussein’s forces because she had left to seek asylum elsewhere.
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"Iraq Refugees Look to President's Lincoln and Obama"- Huffington Post, 6/20/2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luis-carlos-montalvan/iraq-refugees-look-to-pre_b_218375.html
Today is World Refugee Day. The United Nations designated June 20 as the annual day "...to recognize and celebrate the contributions of refugees throughout the world."
But for millions of Iraqis, today is hardly a day to celebrate.
"The country [Iraq] is dealing with one of the largest humanitarian and displacement crises in the world," reports Refugees International (RI).
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