To say that Iraq is having a bad week would be the understatement of the year. The last week has been incredibly tumultuous for the country as the extremist group ISIS has quickly taken over several cities throughout the country. ISIS is known as a violent and repressive group. New rules for Mosul (the northern city that they seized last weekend) have already been implemented that require women to wear conservative Islamic dress and stay at home unless necessary. For a team that is devoted to creating new opportunities for women to thrive, these details sting.

The group now is headed towards Baghdad and the weeks ahead are uncertain. Our team has been busy this week responding to the changes and ensuring that everyone on our team is safe. Now that a few days have passed and our heads are above water, we felt like it was time to give you an update.

As you may know, we hired a remarkable team of four in Baghdad just over a month ago. This team is in charge of implementing our program to benefit over 500 war widows over the next two years. They are an extraordinary group with diverse talents and a huge amount of commitment to making our work a success. All of them, thankfully, are safe. But they are currently hunkered down in their homes in Baghdad to avoid unnecessary risks. We have put our programmatic activities on hold for the moment to wait and see how to proceed in an effective and safe way.

So I am sitting in Boston feeling helpless. This team is now part of the Prosperity family and they are critical partners and visionaries. I feel a deep personal responsibility to their safety. I now wake up every morning anxious to read the news about what happened in Iraq while I was sleeping. There are a lot of things that I can do to create change and move things forward in my life and work, but changing what ISIS does and how the Iraqi government responds is not one of them. This is something outside of my control.

What I can control is how our program responds to this crisis. Once we regroup and determine how to move forward, we will continue to be focused on giving economic opportunities to some of the most vulnerable in Iraq. This is why our incredible team has been hired, why our Program Director Zedan has spent so much time in Baghdad this spring, why we have carefully identified 3 NGO partners to help us support the women in our program, why our partner Prosperity Candle is creating incredible product lines for local and export sales, and why we will move heaven and earth to make our work a success.

One of the reasons that ISIS has grown so quickly is that they offer good salaries for their soldiers (as reported by the NYTimes). This is a reminder to me about why our program is so important, especially in the midst of these security threats. We hope to create opportunities for economic stability for war widows so that they are able to offer their children a future with hope and possibility. Extremism preys on economic vulnerability and at least I can take comfort in the fact that we are playing a small role to curb this threat.

We will keep you posted as things progress related to the safety of our team and the progress of our program. In the meantime, please keep Iraq in your prayers and thoughts. We are standing with the Iraqi citizens as they face these threats and are eager to help build a strong society and economy. Stay tuned to our blog for updates.

Thank you for all of your support during these difficult times!

~ Siiri