The weekend of May 16 and 17th, Lexi sold her bracelets during her sister’s surfing competition. Younger brother Tristan helped out by showing people the photo of Salee and helping to collect the donations. Lexi raised over $100 for Salee selling her bracelets for $2 each, and said that there were a lot of people who wanted to help with her project, which is wonderful! Lexi’s planning further fundraisers and has ideas for a bigger fundraiser when Salee and her father are in the States. Great job, Lexi and Tristan!!!

Becky and I have been working on making more and more bracelets every day. We are selling them for $2 each, and they are a HUGE hit at our school. Even some of the teachers have bought them! We hope to raise about $300 this week to go towards a bigger fundraiser in the next few weeks. –Lexi

A note from NMV Communities Coordinator Ann Cothran: I’ve been awed and amazed at the energy and dedication of Lexi and her friends as they fundraise for No More Victims, and especially, for Salee. Lexi has taken on NMV’s (and Salee’s) cause, with a passion, starting out by making bracelets to sell at her school.  Within a week, she raised over $250 selling the bracelets! She has bigger plans to help NMV and the children, too, and after getting to know Lexi a bit these past few weeks, somehow I feel sure she’ll achieve everything she sets out to do! Read the rest of this entry »

It is with much relief and joy that we send along this note to let you know that Noora sailed through her 12th operation (7 in Iraq and 5 in Maine) yesterday and is now resting on the regular Peds floor, at Maine Med. The operation took Dr. Wilson and Dr. Attwood approximately 3 hours and resulted in the successful reinsertion of the prosthetic skull. Dr. Attwood was able to use the new skin, which the balloons had created, to cover the prosthetic skull and eliminate a large portion of the scar tissue on Noora’s head. If all goes well, Noora should be discharged by the end of the week. In spite of a headache, her current ambitions (as of 20 minutes ago) are to….. get her IV out, eat some grapes, and get to the playroom…..”resilience” in it’s purest form

Last evening a group of us were together and we were able to talk with both Mustafa’s mom (Nidhal), and Ahmed. So much thanks to Abu Bedour and Abu Zahra for translating. First the news, then some impressions.

Most important is that Mustafa is doing well. He has not had any signs of bladder or kidney infection. They are doing fine with  the catheterization procedure. He is only using the prosthesis when strongly encouraged to do so, and seems to prefer the wheelchair. He still plays floor soccer at every opportunity he has. Since they arrived home to Iraq after this school year had started, Mustafa is not now in school. However, he will start going next school year.

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I am a fifteen-year-old freshman at Carmel High School in California. I am currently on the school diving team, and I play water polo in the fall. I am also an active member at our community church. Somehow something felt missing. I decided that I needed to do something for the bigger picture; our world. I wanted to get involved in something bigger than myself.

Although it would have been very easy to get involved in something locally, I wanted a little something more. That was when I decided to look online for organizations that would be worth getting involved in. The very first website I came across was “No More Victims”. I was immediately drawn into the pictures of the children, and the motives behind this organization. I knew right away that this was something that I not only wanted to help with, I needed to contribute. I cannot remember the last time I felt this driven to do something.

I remember when the Iraq war started. I know that I will face much criticism for what I am doing, but to me, this is more than worth it. These children were simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. These aren’t criminals that I want to help, these are innocent children! I feel that this is the best cause available, and I feel honored to be apart of it. I hope that sometime in the very near future I will be able to help significantly. I want to help these children more than anything. They deserve the world’s help, and I am willing to do anything I can to make that happen!

After several months of worrying and so many of us missing Mustafa and Ahmed so so badly, and many friends/interpreters trying various #s to reach them, we were finally able to talk with Ahmed last Friday night. The phone situation and security in Iraq is terrible. The phone connection was horrible and it took several tries to get the line to go through. So, the conversation was limited–on both ends it was extremely hard to hear clearly and at one point, we got disconnected and had to call a second time. The speaker phone didn’t work as the connection was so distorted, so we kept asking our questions to Waddah and Saed as one or the other interpreted into the phone.

At the beginning of the call, for the first minutes when we could hear on the speaker phone, we all broke into smiles and tears as Ahmed said, “I love you, Portland!” It was his wonderful lovely voice!

The important thing we heard is that Mustafa is doing okay. Ahmed said Mustafa had recently gone through some tests and that all is okay with his renal status. (For those of you on the medical team, we did ask Ahmed and the doctor in Fallujah to send the medical reports to Jordan to be sent to us for review by the nephrologist here). More on that soon.

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Dear Friends of Salee,

I know that, like me, those of you in the Carolinas have been anxiously awaiting Salee’s return “home”. Many of you not in the area have either met Salee or heard me rattle on about her so much that you feel like you know her! All of you know that she’s a sweet, charismatic, fun, beautiful and loving little girl.

Maybe for some of you, part of your heart is in Iraq with her like mine is. So you know it’s difficult for me to have to let you all know that we’ll have to postpone Salee’s trip to the States, probably until at least September. But, I know it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that NMV, like the rest of our nation, is suffering a serious financial setback. We thought we could cover Salee’s trip with money from our general fund until we could raise the funds here, but our general fund no longer has the money to do this. As you all know, NMV had some serious financial situations recently with Mustafa Ghazwan’s stay in Jordan lasting several months as they awaited his father’s visa approval, Mustafa Abed undergoing emergency life-saving surgery at a hospital that was not the one signed on for pro bono care, and little Noora still here, awaiting what we hope to be a successful surgery on May 4th.

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When I was younger I didn’t even know what war was and I definitely didn’t know that families were torn apart. Honestly, I believed that stuff only happened in George Washington’s time. But now I see that our own country is a very ironic place. We say we are the “freedom country” when we are tearing the “freedom” from others. This is a crime and genocide even if we claim we didn’t do anything wrong. I believe that if the American people knew exactly what was going on they would do anything in their power to help. That is why my friends and I are doing this. That is why we are helping. Every single child deserves dreams, hopes, and a bright future. I’m going to make sure this happens for them.

We’ve produced a short video telling the story of 6-year-old Naba. (Click the HQ button in the player to watch in high-resolution.)

Learn more about Naba.