How to make a difference in Iraq

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L to R: Rafat, Dr. Salam and Raed

Raed Jarrar, his family and girlfriend Niki began a project some five months ago to purchase and distribute medicines in Iraq. They thought that being Iraqi (except Niki, who’s Iranian), they’d know the best places to distribute the aid so that it did the most good. So, they began taking donations, buying medicines and medical supplies in Jordan and distributing them in Iraq. Raed documents everything they do with photos and scans of documents, so that he’s not only doing a good deed in a very aboveboard and accountable fashion, he also almost inadvertently creates a heartwarming story on his blog. So go here and scroll up through the story of the third batch of medicines and how it got to Iraq, or just go here and scroll down.

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Raed: I tried to cover some of the medicines so that when my mom woke up she wouldn’t have a heart attack… Raed’s Mom having a heart attack over the redecoration of her living room


All the medicines in this, the third batch, were bought with only a little over ten thousand US dollars in donations. In all, Raed has received almost eighteen thousand dollars (US). Oddly, the donors seem to be mainly Canadian? How is that possible?

I think Raed and his friends and family have done a great job with this project.