Helping hand for orphans

CPOB Glen Ivins and some of the school children who recieved the donations of school stationery in Umm Qasr.

Photo: CPOB Glen Ivins

By CPL Damian Shovell in Iraq

The sight of underprivileged children at an orphanage at the Iraqi coastal city of Umm Qasr spurred one member of the Iraqi Coastal Defence Force – Training Team (ICDF-TT) to lend a hand.

CPOB Glen Ivins witnessed poverty on a daily basis and decided to make a difference to the lives of those in the community he shared during his six month deployment, by first organising a delivery of clothing and toys from Australia, before learning the real need was for school stationery.

Within days other members of the ICDF –TT were behind the project. “Basically, we all chipped in and purchased enough stationery to fill seven large boxes with textas pencils, crayons, exercise books, writing books, folders – all the stationery you could think of,” he said.

Because of strict force protection measures, CPOB Ivins wasn’t able to pay a personal visit to the schools to dispense the gifts, so they came to him.

“We organised to get two of the headmasters of seven local Umm Qasr schools to come up to the Iraqi headquarters and they brought five students – one from each grade from first By CPL Damian Shovell in Iraq class up to fifth – to receive the gifts.

“The way I see it, the Iraqi children are the future of Iraq and this is one way to try and breakdown preconceived ideas that we both have of each other - starting at their small age and then bringing it through the community that the Coalition is here to help, not here to take over the country, and we’ll try and help in every way.

“And that’s not the only thing we’ve been doing,” he said.

“Once a week we’ve been going out there doing small drops of food, clothing, stationery to the squatters that live around our area.”

CPOB Ivins’ Rotary club in Grenfell, NSW, also raised more than $6,000.

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