IHSCO

Iraqi Health and Social Care Organization is independent and neutral; helps the handicapped people who might be victims of phenomenal disasters, disasters caused by the human beings, wars and civil wars regardless to religion, ideology, race, politics or gender.

The organization aims to reduce the handicapped people’s suffering and aid them in medical care, rehabilitation, social care and social support. It also works on educating people on the risks of war remains of mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO).

Over the past 25 years of wars Iraq suffered from, thousands of mine and UXO victims of various ages were recorded and, on the other hand, the problem of widely spread mines and UXO means a big potential of a large number of new victims.

Based on that, the main two objectives that Iraqi Health and Social Care Organization is working on are:
Educating people of the mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) risks. This process is called Mine Risk Education (MRE).
Medical, social, physical and economical rehabilitation of victims.

The ongoing projects IHSCO currently has are Mine Risk Education (MRE) and Victim Surveillance (VS). The organisation is covering six governorates in central and southern Iraq under both projects.

Although the organization is newly established in 2004 by Iraqis but IHSCO has won the trust and support of big international donors and entities.

Iraqi Health and Social Care Organisation has very promising plans for the future for helping the Iraqi disabled with medical, socio-economical and psychological rehabilitation which gives IHSCO credibility with beneficiaries after collecting data about them.

IHSCO works closely with the National Mine Action Authority (NMAA), supporting the implementation of its strategy, and follows Iraq’s provisional national mine action standards. Their activities have included collecting needs assessment data, supporting the NMAA’s mass media campaign by providing information from the field and conducting field-tests, and conducting direct MRE and training of trainers according to the needs identified, primarily among community based organisations. Despite the challenges posed by the deteriorating security situation, IHSCO’s achievements have been considerable. For example, IHSCO has conducted training with the Civil Defence, the Ministry of Youth and Sport, universities and local community leaders. IHSCO has also conducted emergency MRE for internally displaced people (IDPs) from Falluja who are based in Baghdad, prior to their return home. The poster illustrated on the right was produced by a Baghdad based media company with advice from IHSCO, and was field tested and distributed by IHSCO. It supports a television campaign, featuring a character created especially to deliver MRE messages.

IHSCO is also contributing to a national needs assessment by providing information from the field on the needs for MRE. IHSCO has conducted surveys of risk-taking behaviour in 150 communities, and has also helped to set up the NMAA’s victim surveillance programme. At present it is difficult to measure the impact of IHSCO’s work in reducing risk to affected populations, but once the data collected is entered into a database and analysed, it will provide baseline data with which to measure the project’s impact.

Many of the IHSCO staff, including the Director, have previous MRE experience in Baghdad from their work with Handicap International France, which set up a programme in Iraq in July 2003. They have also participated in the following courses: Management of MRE and victim assistance, Victim surveillance, Cranfield’s Mine Action Middle Manager course, and MANGO’s Finance Management for NGOs.

IHSCO has established an office in Baghdad and a sub-office in Kerbala, and the project is managed from these two offices.

Although IHSCO’s current activities are focussed on MRE and victim surveillance, IHSCO is interested in providing victim rehabilitation services in the future.