HUMANITY TOGETHER TO SCHOOL

AREA OF INTERVENTION Autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan

LOCAL PARTNER Deir Mar Musa Monastic Community

ITALIAN PARTNERS Francesco Realmonte Onlus Association, Friends of Deir Mar Musa Association, RiRes - Catholic University of the Sacred Heart (scientific supervision)

CONTEXT Iraq has recently been subject to a strong wave of unemployment protests, exacerbated by rampant corruption and lack of access to essential services.

The economic and social situation, especially in Kurdistan, has clearly worsened due to COVID19 which is also causing enormous economic damage in Iraq.

Numerous refugee families, mostly from Syria or Mosul in the Nineveh Plain, live in the Sabunkaran neighborhood in the city of Sulaymaniyya. Some families are hosted in the monastery of the Deir Mar Musa community, founded by Father Paolo dall'Oglio, and need to get the 17 children present to reach and attend the school located on the other side of the city. Indeed, the government reopened schools last October.

OBJECTIVE The monastery owns a minibus that could take the children of refugee families to schools, but does not have the funds to bear the out-of-pocket costs of using it. The project therefore intends to provide insurance coverage for the school bus, its maintenance, fuel and the salary for the driver who will also take the children to catechism classes. The same would be available to children during the holidays for all the monastery or parish activities.