By Chris Herlinger
Baghdad, Iraq (UMNS) - The Baghdad
suburb of Hai Tarek is an unusually harsh place, and conditions here -
muddy roads covered with garbage, no sewage system, the effects of sickness
and trauma - underline the continued importance of humanitarian assistance.
"Humanitarian work is still needed here," said Mazen Mohsen, an Iraqi physician.
It's also welcome, if the boisterous - and largely young - crowds that greeted the daily delivery of water in this predominantly Shi'ite area were any indication.
The delivery was made possible by the support of U.S. churches working together on the "All Our Children" campaign, an inter-agency effort to meet the critical medical and health needs of Iraqi children and their families. The campaign, led by Church World Service, is supported by other U.S. church agencies, including the United Methodist Committee on Relief.
The campaign had raised $841,748 by early 2004, with $410,000 of that amount provided through Church World Service, the relief arm of the U.S. National Council of Churches. The campaign has supported a total of 14 projects.
The campaign-funded water project in Hai Tarek - including daily delivery of water and distribution of jerry cans to some 55,000 people (about 5,000 families) - is improving lives in one of Baghdad's poorest areas, an area where most residents don't have jobs and where eight out of 10 residents are children.
Another project is also improving conditions in the impoverished area: $60,000 is being used to support Hai Tarek's sole health clinic, a facility that sees up to 250 patients a day.
Dozens of Hai Tarek residents - many of them women in their black chadors accompanied by small children - line up daily outside the clinic to see a doctor or receive medicine.
Both projects are administered by Architects for People in Need, a German-based non-governmental organization.
In coming weeks, Hai Tarek's residents will benefit from another All Our Children-supported effort: five medicine boxes that will provide a three-month supply of basic medicines for 5,000 people. And later this year, children at a Hai Tarek school down the street from the clinic will receive some of the 13,160 "Gift of the Heart" school kits that are being shipped to Iraq. In addition, 16,450 "Gift of the Heart" health kits are being sent to Iraq.
These efforts must continue, given the ongoing medical problems in Iraq that stem from long-term neglect and the past imposition of international sanctions, Mohsen said. He called overall medical conditions in Iraq "poor."
Post-war confusion has contributed to the problems, resulting in a lack of safe and usable medicines in Iraq. "That is the most serious problem we face now," the physician said. If not corrected shortly, he warned, Iraq would face a grave health crisis in the near future.
International efforts are easing the problem. Jean Renouf, a program coordinator for Premiere Urgence, a French agency that has received funding from the campaign, thanked its U.S. church supporters for their assistance. Those funds, he said, will be used to rehabilitate a wing, help build a needed X-ray facility and buy a sonogram for a pediatric hospital in Kerbala.