Mustafa’s Great News!
and
Mustafa’s
Great News!
The “No More Victims” project has made incredible progress since we began in November of 2007.
Mustafa will be coming to the Bay Area for his surgery and rehabilitation!
He still needs your support.
When we began we knew we wanted to bring an Iraqi child to the Bay Area for medical care. We connected with “ No More Victims”, an organization dedicated to bringing children to the US who have been victims of US bombings. With our help No More Victims is now bringing Mustafa Ghazwan, a 2 year old who’s hearing was completely lost when a US percussive bomb went off near his home. He is due to arrive in July and we have work to do to make his complete care possible.
We have been working with the doctors at UCSF/ Iraq Action Group who have coordinated Mustafa’s medical Care. He will need a cochlear implant, and months of hearing and speech therapy before returning home and after. Pro bono services (estimated at $85,000) have been donated by the surgeon and anesthesiologist and a cochlear implant has been donated by the manufacturer. Further, the Ronald McDonald House in SF has agreed to provide housing for Mustafa and his father for as long as needed at no cost.
Our original fundraising goal for Mustafa was $20,000.
To date Ruth Group friends and families, through a mailing and a benefit dinner, have raised $10,145. AND just this week a generous donor has moved us to our $20,000 goal with a donation of $11,200. Thank you so much to all who have given large and small to make this possible. This money will be spent on travel to and from the Bay Area and Middle East, Visas and medical documentation, funds for the family left behind, and the cost of the hospital surgical room for 1 day.
Our work is not over however, as there will be further expenses due to speech and hearing therapy on Mustafa’s return to Syria and Iraq as well as the incidental costs of travel, food, and phone calls home. We estimate we need between $5,000. and $10,000 more to meet these and other unforeseen costs. PLEASE CONTINUE TO CONTRIBUTE TO MUSTAFA’S CARE.
Checks can be written to “IHC/No More Victims with “Bay Area Project” in subject line.
Mail to: Ruth Group, PO Box 722, Mill Valley, CA 94942. IHC is the International Humanities Center, the fiscal 501(c)(3)sponsor for No More Victims.
Arabic speaking volunteers are needed to help while Mustafa and his father’s stay at the Ronald McDonald House to help with a few meals a week and taking them to meet others in the community.
Contact: Amy Skewes-Cox (amysc@rtas.com or Ruth Friend(ruthefriend@gmail.com).
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May 17th, 2008 @ 1:05 pm
Dear Will,
Yesterday Amy and I went to the Ronald McDonald House to confirm plans for Mustafa’s stay there during his medical care. It is located on Scott St. directly across the street from Mt. Zion hospital where he will be cared for. It is a sweet place, simple and hospitable with little private cupboards for food in the kitchen, playyard for kids and computers for adults.
During out conversation with the project manager we asked if he knew of Mustafa’s background and he began to tell us that they had gone to the Ruth Group blog site and read everything regarding the No More Victims project, seen the latest IJ article, and had a very in depth idea of where we are politically. We were really pleased that they used the site this way, and that it was so up to date that they were able to make a decision about us from it. Thank you so much for keeping on with it!!! You can see that as it develops it becomes an even bigger tool for our activities.
He did go on to say that they were aware that our main focus has been our anti war sentiment towards the war in Iraq. That the Ronald McDonald House needed to be neutral in these matters, and wanted us to be clear about that. We reiterated that our activities regarding Mustafa were acts of compassion, and tho they did reflect our anti war feelings and politics we didn’t need to make this our platform to express it and that we were grateful they made the home available to us in spite of our political stand on the war.
I hope at some point to be able to express our gratitude to Ronald McDonald House.
Thank you for sticking with the Ruth Group Blog and with all of us who want to keep things going. Your work makes a difference!
Best,
Ruth