Helping people one person at a time: the case of Rahma

Rahma Kouzah, age twenty months, has a severely deformed skull and her eyes bulge out. She lives with her mother Samia and her brother Ahmed age 6 years in Zarqa, Jordan's second largest city, in small rented but untenable house lacking basic amenities. Her parents, from Palestinian origins, fled the conflicts in Baghdad in 2006 to Jordan. However, her father, who used to work as electrician in Iraq, has been deported from Jordan because he lacks legal residency and is now unemployed and living in the West Bank unable to unite with his family. Her mother, Samia, is neither Jordanian, nor technically an Iraqi. So she has no access to public or government services and her son Ahmed can't attend public schools.

Samia, with a non-stop smile, does not benefit from any assistance by aid agencies targeting Iraqi refugees (since she is technically not Iraqi) neither from assistance targeting Jordanians (since she is not Jordanian) nor from assistance targeting Palestinian refugees (since her husband is not registered with the UNRWA). For this reason, Samia told me that she is surviving on occasional little assistance from her neighbors as well as from programs such as HCI's new program in Zarqa.

Samia told me that she feels "sheltered" when HCI team visit her. I asked her why? She responded that she feels she is forgotten in her tiny house, but HCI team makes her feel being taken cared of. "Every time HCI team visit me or call me, they give me hope and I feel secure and not forgotten," Samia commented with a heartbreaking smile. "They come and sit with me on the ground asking me about not only my needs but more importantly my concerns and my hope. They make me feel optimistic in my difficult situation," Samia added. "They come and play with my disabled daughter, who I fear taking her out because people does not want to admit she exists and aid agencies refuse to see her, and many do not recognize her as human," Samia concluded looking at her daughter who sat on the couch quietly looking at us.

Rahma's mother suspects radioactive materials used in bombs in Iraq caused the deformities. Rahma sleeps at night with her eyes open bulged out because of the deformity, as she is still in Iraq afraid from bombs.

I asked Samia what the family most in need of. "I am badly in need of my daughter's basic supplies, such as milk, baby food, baby napkins, and more importantly I need a clip-on push chair for her that can conceal her face so I can take her out without raising the fear of my neighbors, particularly kids," Samia responded. "When I take her out, people on the street look at me as I am carrying a non-human," Samia added.

We left Samia's apartment accompanied by her 6-year-old son Ahmed who is hoping to attend a school later this year.

Kouzah family is one of the beneficiaries of HCI's new program in Zarqa with an objective to enhance the standard of living of vulnerable refugees coming from Iraq, particularly persons with mental and physical impairment, female-headed households, elderly and children. HCI will provide individualized relief aid for those vulnerable Iraqis refugees with disability such as food and nutritional aid, basic home maintenance/appliances that contribute to accessibility and mobility as well as capacity for independent living, and essential medical equipments for people with disability.

I got in the car and I started to assess our approach and why Samia's family who is with no doubt one of the most vulnerable families in Zarqa has not had access to services by aid agencies yet other than HCI: what makes HCI different and efficient is its exceptional at-home individualized support and individualized relief aid. We reach vulnerable people, listen to them, identify with them their needs on the ground, and provide them with such individualized relief support. It may take more resources but this what HCI is for: helping people one person at a time.