A Newtown Volunteer In Iraq––

In A Land Of Great Losses, An Urgent Effort To Save The Children

By Kaaren Valenta

When most Americans think about Iraq, the images that come to mind are those that are shown on the evening news. Emily Fries, however, recently lived and worked in Iraq, on assignment for the Westport-based humanitarian agency Save the Children, and sees a very different country.

“What you hear in the media about what is happening in the north [of Iraq] is not happening in the south,” Ms Fries, 24, said. “You don’t see acts of violence aimed against Americans. The people are so warm, so incredibly friendly. It makes you realize what good people there are everywhere.”

But Ms Fries, who graduated from Newtown High School in 1996 and from Colgate University four years later, said there are still risks.

“There is a lot of gunfire,” she admitted. “Everyone there has a gun and uses it freely –– to celebrate an event like the birth of a child, for example, or to scare a robber off their property, or just to test a new gun. One night gunfire went on for 45 minutes and it turned out to be the night that the United Nations lifted the sanctions [against Iraq]. Still, I did not feel as unsafe as I thought I would.”

The daughter of Nancy Taylor and Mark Fries of Sandy Hook, Ms Fries joined Save the Children last year after spending a year and a half in Costa Rica, teaching and organizing agricultural aid projects.

“Save the Children asked me if I wanted to go to Iraq to help set up their first relief operations there,” she said. “I went in April and was based originally in Kuwait. For the first few weeks our program people made day trips to Iraq, putting systems into place. Once the team was ready to go to Basra, they sent me there to set up shop –– to get four houses for staff housing and to get a building ready for office space. My role was to negotiate with the landlords, which I did with the help of a local translator who spoke Arabic.”

The team included 100 people, 80 of whom were Iraqi citizens. The rest were drawn from the international staff of Save the Children, which operates in 40 countries.

“There were only a few Americans on the team,” Ms Fries said. “The objective is to train and get as many of the local people involved as possible, so they feel ownership of the program.”

Save the Children is bringing into Iraq a wide array of emergency response programs including those that provide food, safe water, cooking fuel, shelter, medicines, and other basic necessities. Security remains the single greatest concern. Tammie Willcuts, program director for Save the Children in southern Iraq, told a House subcommittee in Washington, D.C., recently that as violence against US forces in Iraq increases, there is a growing risk that relief agencies also will be targeted.

Although the United Nations is in charge of security in Basra, the forces generally patrol the perimeter, leaving most of the responsibility with the local Iraqi police. Save the Children has set up its own security response program for its staff.

“We have an escape plan –– we know exactly what we are supposed to do,” Ms Fries said.

A more immediate danger, especially to the Iraqi children, are the landmines and unexploded ordnance that have been left by the military as a result of the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and the current war. Much of the danger exists around schools, which were temporarily taken over by the military.

 “In the last month alone, 60 to 65 children were injured or killed by land mines or unexploded ordinance,” Ms Fries said.

So her main assignment, after she arrived in Basra, was to launch a landmine awareness program to educate Iraqi children and teachers about the dangers of landmines and unexploded ordinance. The program reached more than 2,200 students in the Basra region before the summer break began.

 “You can save these children’s lives if you can tell them what these items look like, where they are found, and what to do if they find one,” she said. “It is amazing the respect these children show to education. They are so eager to learn.”

When the war began, many of the parents began to keep their children home from school, fearing that they would be hurt or kidnapped. So Save the Children set up summer camps to bring the children in a place where they could feel secure and participate in activities such as games, music, and art to learn important messages about landmine education, health, and safety.

Each week 100 boys and 100 girls in each of the eight districts of Basra will attend a five-day camp organized by Save the Children with the help of community leaders and volunteers and with financial and in-kind support from UNICEF. During seven weeks in July and August, Save the Children hopes to reach more than 11,000 children in the Basra region. Plans are underway for similar programs in Najaf and Karbala.

An important part of the program is making children feel secure and providing a sense of normality in their lives, Ms Fries said. “Their mothers and fathers want to help as much as they can. They are incredibly appreciative of what we are doing.”

Life for everyone continues to be difficult in Iraq.

“Looting is still going on,” she said. “The daily temperatures are as much as 120 degrees, there isn’t electricity, and the water is very poor. It certainly affects the morale of the Iraqi people and the Save the Children staff. But what you get from the success of the program makes it so worthwhile. I really want to go back.”

Emily Fries is scheduled to return to Iraq within the coming days for another two-month assignment. Eventually, however, Save the Children will leave.

“Our role is to teach the Iraqi people to teach their own people because there will be a time when it is appropriate for us to leave the country,” she said. “In the meantime, it is very inspiring to think of how many ways we are able to help.”

More information about the humanitarian relief agency is available at www.savethechildren.org.