As the challenging winter season approaches, many humanitarian organisations are preparing to provide relief aid to those suffering in Iraq. While the infrastructure of the country is being repaired by international NGOs, the daily necessities to survive are desperately being provided by these organisations.

Warm clothing is one of the most essential needs this winter. To overcome the cold winter, a Relief Fund grant of £8,000 has been given by the BMS World Mission to its partner organisation, the Lebanese Society for Education and Social Development (LCESD), which is currently based in Baghdad. With the grant, LSESD aims to provide warm clothing to 1,250 Iraqis. Beneficiaries from this grant will include both Christians and Muslims.

LSESD operates in the northern part of Iraq where many people are unemployed and cannot afford to buy food for their families.

The International Red Cross also made an appeal recently for an end to human rights abuses in Iraq. The aid agency said it was "deeply concerned" that the fighting in the country was having such an impact, and it expressed its dismay at the failure of all sides in the lingering Iraqi conflict to respect international humanitarian laws.

The combined efforts of a number of aid agencies in Iraq have been applauded enthusiastically by Church leaders, and to many suffering Iraqis, these aid workers are the only glimmer of hope in their desperate lives.

This is not BMS' first time to provide a grant to Iraq, and the organisation has done so before through the LSESD, a Lebanese umbrella organisation under which several organisations and Lebanese Baptist Seminary operate.

This action of solidarity among the Iraqis will make a powerful statement to the people living in a country with negative viewpoints of Christianity related to the West.




Jenny Lee
Ecumenical Press