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The two girls had never met before last weekend, but they already had a special connection.One is a 12-year-old Iraqi who lost her legs during an American airstrike. The other is a 15-year-old Carmel High School student.

Three years ago, Salee Allawi was playing outside her home in Fallujah, Iraq, when a missile hit. The explosion killed her brother and injured her legs so seriously that they were amputated below the knees.

On Sept. 19, Salee traveled with her father, Hussein Feras, from Los Angeles — where she is spending the month to break in her new prosthetic legs — to the Peninsula to meet Lexi Mooneyham, a Carmel Valley girl who raised $600 to help pay for Salee’s travels to the United States.

“Meeting her was like a dream come true,” Lexi said. “It was reassuring to know that all those efforts I was doing were going to a great cause, that I helped someone and to see the effects of that.”

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Bear hugs and welcoming smiles greeted Salee Allawe when she returned to Shriners Hospital for Children on Wednesday, two years after traveling to Greenville from Iraq to be fitted with prosthetic legs.

The Iraqi girl lost both legs in a missile strike, according to No More Victims, the group that arranged her trip. She captivated Greenville in 2007 with her courage and determination as she underwent surgery, then was fitted for the legs that let her walk and play again.

She was scheduled to return 12 to 18 months later for new legs to accommodate her growth, but No More Victims instead arranged for her treatment near its Los Angeles headquarters.

But because Salee and her father, Hussein, preferred the care they received in Greenville and felt at home here, local volunteers raised money to pay for their return visit, said Ann Miller, the group’s national community coordinator.

“The care (in Los Angeles) was good, but they’re just so much more comfortable with the team in Greenville,” Miller said. “They are so excited to be coming back.”  Read the rest of this entry »

OCT. 23, 2006: Noora Afif Abdulhameed is hit by a sniper’s bullet in Iraq on her way home from a family celebration. The bullet makes a large hole in her skull and destroys her cerebral membrane, the protective covering that surrounds the brain. Noora lies in a coma for 10 days.

JUNE 6, 2008: Noora and her father, Afif Abdulhameed Otaiwi, leave their hometown of Heet and travel to Amman, Jordan, the first leg of their journey to America.

JULY 10, 2008: Noora and her father arrive at the Portland Jetport, where they are greeted by a crowd of well-wishers.

JULY 15, 2008: Noora goes to Maine Medical Center for the first time for a CT scan to assess the extent of her head injury. Doctors are unable to find a usable vein because of the scar tissue she’s developed getting numerous IVs in Iraq, and the procedure is delayed for a few days.

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A seven-year-old girl is finally enjoying a long-awaited reunion with her mother and siblings, after spending nearly a year in Maine. Noora Abdulhameed and her father traveled to Portland for medical treatment to repair injuries she suffered during the war.

For the past year, NECN reporter Marnie MacLean and videographer Dave Brosemer have followed Noora’s progress. They bring you Noora’s journey.

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SCARBOROUGH (March 3, 2009): Harrison Tice loves to roller skate. He does it a few times a week playing street hockey in his Scarborough neighborhood. Now the 10-year-old is taking his love for his pastime and turning it into a way to help a young lady he calls “one special person.”

Since late January, Harrison has been planning a fundraiser to help pay medical expenses for Noora Afif Abdulhameed, a 7-year-old Iraqi girl injured in the fighting in Iraq in 2006. She has been in Portland since last summer, receiving medical treatment for head injuries.

Harrison with Noora. (Photo by Elizabeth Campbell)

“I just wanted to help her,” Harrison said. “I understand that I am pretty lucky to live here and that other kids aren’t as lucky. I thought this would be a good way to give back.”

Harrison, along with Happy Wheels in Portland, will host two hours of skating at the rink on March 14. All proceeds will go to Noora’s cause and skate rentals are free during the event.

“I like to skate and I figured this is something others might want to do as well,” Harrison said.

Harrison learned about Noora’s plight after studying and reporting on the war in Iraq as part of a cultural studies project in his fifth-grade class at Breakwater School in Portland.

While doing research, he came across Noora’s story in a newspaper and decided to take his project a step further and raise money for her, said his mother, Elizabeth Campbell.

In October 2006, Noora, who was 5 at the time, was shot in the head by U.S. snipers. According to the advocacy Web site www.nomorevictims.org, Noora’s medical records show she had sustained an explosive bullet injury to her head that smashed skull bones and ruptured her cerebral membrane.

She underwent several neurological surgeries in Iraq, but members of nomorevictims.org brought her to Portland so she could undergo more surgery to repair her skull.

Harrison met Noora in February during school vacation. The visit, he said, strengthened his desire to help.

“In Iraq she didn’t always have electricity or clean water and that made me sad,” Harrison said. “I had fun getting to meet her and I can’t believe how well she speaks English.”

Harrison sought his mother’s help in his quest to aid Noora.

“He came to me and said he wanted to do this,” Campbell said. “I always knew he was a caring kid, but this isn’t something you really expect to come from a 10-year-old.”

Initially, Harrison thought he would raise some money through a bottle drive. Then, with his mom’s help, he began calling Greater Portland businesses to see if they would be interested in hosting an event to defray costs of Noora’s medical care.

Many businesses were interested in an arrangement where 25 percent of the proceeds would go to Noora’s cause.

That was good, but Harrison had another idea. He decided to call Happy Wheels in Portland, one of his favorite places to skate. He then got what he described as some of the best news of his life.

“They told me they would help and that they would donate all of the money from the event to Noora,” he said.

And so, on Saturday, March 14, Happy Wheels is going to do just that, manager Dan Dyer said. The fundraiser will go from 5:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. and admission is $4.50.

“We couldn’t believe they were donating all 100 percent of those proceeds to this cause,” Campbell said. “We were shocked.”

Dyer said Happy Wheels owner Paul White believes in fundraising causes that help children like Noora. To him, hosting the event was a no-brainer, Dyer said.

“We are just glad we can help,” Dyer said. “Paul White is big into giving back and we felt this one of the best ways we could do that.”

Harrison said he doesn’t have any monetary goal for the fundraiser, but said he hopes at least a few people will show up.

“Not everybody can be there and not everybody can skate,” Harrison said. “This allows them to still give if they want to.”

Noora is currently staying at the Ronald McDonald House in Portland and is scheduled for more surgery, Campbell said.

If people don’t skate or can’t make the event, they can still donate money to Noora’s cause by e-mailing Campbell at ecamp.main.rr.com, or calling her at 885-1373.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A U.S. missile strike in Iraq took Mustafa Ghazwan’s hearing nearly two years ago. On Tuesday, far from home, the 3-year-old’s wall of silence finally cracked.

In a University of California, San Francisco conference room, audiologist Colleen Polite switched on an electronic device that had been surgically inserted into Mustafa’s ear weeks ago.

After several tense minutes with no response, Mustafa stopped playing with his puzzle and buried his head in his father’s chest at the sound of Polite’s voice. Moments later, the sound of a clacking toy drew a stare and a frown from the otherwise cheery boy.

“I think he’s off to a fantastic start,” Polite said. “It was almost as if he read a script before he came in today.”

Mustafa was 2 years old and just learning to speak when a missile struck a neighbor’s home and left him deaf in June 2007.

He has not been able to talk since. His father, Ghazwan Al-Nadawi, said his son sometimes bangs his head in frustration over his inability to communicate.

No More Victims, a group that brings war-wounded Iraqi children to the U.S. for treatment, sponsored Mustafa’s trip to San Francisco in December. The next month, UCSF surgeons donating their services inserted a cochlear implant in his right ear.

The implant channels sound past damaged ears and directly into the brain. The device turns sounds transmitted through an external microphone mounted on the ear into electrical impulses that are fired into auditory nerves.

Over time, the area of the brain that manages hearing learns to translate those impulses. While the experience is not the same as normal hearing, patients can understand speech, use the telephone and listen to music, according to doctors.

Mustafa’s device even includes a jack that will allow him to directly connect his implant to an iPod.

Mustafa will need several months of observation to determine what sounds he is and is not hearing so the device can be fine-tuned, Polite said. He and his father, a professor of media studies at Baghdad University, expect to stay in San Francisco as the boy adjusts to the device.

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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Great news for an Iraqi boy who had an operation at UCSF to restore his hearing. Doctors at UCSF just wrapped up his first hearing tests, and they were successful.

For 3-year-old Mustafa Ghazwan, the thrill of being seven floors up at UCSF is all about what he can see.

But in a few minutes, that will change to what he can hear.

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