Run, walk or cheer for the children of Iraq
The Iraqi Children Foundation run three mobile schools called the Hope Buses. These deliver tutoring, healthcare and social support to orphans, street kids and displaced children living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods across Baghdad. In September, Hani Kampoori is running the London ‘Big Half’ marathon to support the Iraqi Children Foundation; an organis…
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A new skate park in Baghdad is the safe space Iraqi youth have longed for
Car bombs and militant attacks are no longer a daily concern in the streets of Baghdad as they were in the chaotic years after the fall of Saddam Hussein or at the height of the battle to push back the Islamic State group. But as Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Stella Martany explain, while violence has decreased, many young Iraqis say their opportunities remain li…
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Iraqi war survivor visits Mestalla
At the beginning of January, during the week of the match against Real Madrid CF, two Valencia CF fans were able to meet the squad and accompany the players at Mestalla. In 2017, Abboud Salaam lost his home and his family disappeared under bombing in Iraq. He was left alone and seriously injured. Manhal Al-Qaisi came to rescue him and care for him. In the …
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People with disabilities in Iraq reborn with football
People with disabilities encounter various challenges, both obvious and hidden. They go through a range of mental and emotional obstacles, from feelings of helplessness and diminished self-worth to facing discrimination, bullying and unequal opportunities compared to others. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been actively supporting people …
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Aiming high for disabled sports in Iraq
Iraq has one of the highest number of disabled citizens in the world, as a direct consequence of war and terrorism. This has resulted in new approaches being applied to promote inclusion. People are still being impacted by landmines and other unexploded ordnances, with some UXO’s dating back to the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980’s. This sadly, rarely ever makes…
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Why Ammar Ali loves the thrill of wheelchair fencing
Ammar Ali is a wheelchair fencer who won a silver medal in the men's epee category B at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and is Iraq’s first wheelchair fencing Paralympic medalist. He will compete at Paris 2024, his fourth Paralympic Games . This is his story.
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Melissa Stockwell describes the Paralympian mindset
Melissa Stockwell knew from a young age she wanted to serve her country. After graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2002, the Michigan native was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. “It was April 13th of 2004. We’d been in Iraq for just three weeks, and it was a routine convoy that, that specific day, my vehicl…
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Ali Al Hamadi becomes first Iraqi to play in Premier League
Ipswich Town forward Ali Al Hamadi made history on Saturday as he became the first Iraqi to play in the Premier League. Al Hamadi entered the action on 74 minutes at Portman Road as his side lost 2-0 to a Mohamed Salah-inspired Liverpool. As Andy Lewis explains, newly promoted Ipswich competed well in the opening 45 minutes but the visiting Reds, who were…
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Iraqi Children Foundation Announces 2024 Global “IN THEIR SHOES” 5K
The Iraqi Children Foundation (ICF) have announced that the 2024 Global “ In Their Shoes” 5K run/walk to benefit Iraqi orphans and vulnerable children will be held on Saturday, September 28, 2024, at Rock Creek Park in the US capital, Washington, DC. Those unable to join in person in Washington, DC, can join the “virtual” 5K instead, and run/walk anywhere…
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Bombed but unbroken, the Iraqi Paralympian aiming for gold
Najla Imad Lafta recounts the fateful day a bomb tore off parts of her legs and right arm. Only three years old at the time, she had left her breakfast and dashed outside after hearing a familiar car horn in the street. As Sinan Mahmoud explains, her father's car rolled to a gentle stop, he stepped out and scooped her up, placing her alongside him in …
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Wushu in Iraq helps martial arts grow stronger
In a wushu (Chinese martial arts) club located in the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq, over 100 Chinese martial arts enthusiasts clad in training attire are diligently practicing wushu routines, each strike executed with power, precision and thunderous short yells. As Xinhua explains, despite temperatures soaring above 40 C, their passion for wushu burns even…
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Meet Bobby Body, the US veteran going for gold in Paris
With a name like Bobby Body, weightlifting was destined to be in his future. But he has carried plenty of weight from his service and injury in the Marine Corps before joining the National Guard and serving in Iraq. Body has not had an easy road to Paris representing Team USA in the Paralympic Games. Abandoned by his mother when he was five, he and his si…
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Boxing brothers lace up for Paris Olympics
Two-time Jordanian Olympic boxer Hussein Ishaish, will join his brother Zeyad Ishaish and fellow boxer Obada Al-Kasbeh on the plane to France this summer. As Grace Goulding explains, this marks the second consecutive Olympics where the siblings will compete side by side, a rare and potentially record-setting achievement in boxing. The Ishaish brothers’ bo…
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Blind footballer brings game to visually impaired Iraqis
When football fanatic Othman al-Kinani became blind in 2008, the loss of his sight hit him hard, not least because he thought he'd have to hang up his boots for good. Now aged 51, Kinani described his struggle to rebuild his life. "I even forgot how to walk," he told Khalil Jalil of AFP. "I had to rely on my hearing for everything,"…
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Refereeing skills open gateway for Iraqi asylum seeker in Iceland
Forced to leave his home country of Iraq as an asylum seeker, Twana Khalid Ahmed and his family were relieved to settle into a new life in Iceland, but it took a chance meeting with the local doctor to discover a new home for his professional calling. Talking to the doctor, Twana realised that the doctor's husband was a leading Icelandic referee – a ro…
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How young women are moving the goalposts in Iraq
Over two billion people around the world watched the Women’s World Cup Final in August, and tucked away on the left coast of the Tigris River in Mosul, Iraq, a group of teenage girls and their families scoured the internet to find streaming sites to catch the game. The screening was fuzzy, but the vision was clear: one day, the Mosul Girls Football Club cou…
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Yazidi brothers embrace soccer in Toowoomba, Australia
Jumping in the car and heading to the local sports club for a match is a weekend tradition most Australian families and kids take for granted. But that is not the case for brothers Saman, Sipan and Rizgar Almuhama. As ABC Australia report, the brothers were born in the Sinjar district of north-eastern Iraq, close to the Syrian border. They are Yazidis — …
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Woman, life and freedom for Iraq’s Yazidi women
To mark Women’s History Month, we’d like to remind readers of two incredible British based organizations who are working with the Yazidi community in Iraq. In August 2014, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis were forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods in Sinjar, northern Iraq, after the area was attacked by ISIS militants. Since 2014, the AMAR Interna…
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Adversity fought on the other side of the ropes
John Wright writes about Emile Griffith, a black, gay, boxing world champion, and details some of the struggles he faced both in and out of the ring. HARD enough being a young black man in the United States during the long and oppressive Jim Crow decades of the 1950s and 60s, forced to suffer a daily assault on your dignity, humanity, and often even person…
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By facing the shadows of the past, boxers can fight prejudice today
About 100,000 Tunisian Jews were forced to wear a yellow star during the Second World War, and thousands were sent to labor and concentration camps, where many were killed. One such victim was Victor “Young” Perez, one of the most prominent athletes to grow up in the Tunisian Jewish community. Victor Perez was born on October 18, 1912 in French-ruled Tunis…
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