Feature: Iraqi man rescues war orphans, hopes for better future

To take care of 33 orphans is a tough task, but to turn them into creative persons holding international awards in one of toughest neighborhoods in Baghdad is something almost impossible.

Husham al-Dahabi, in his 30s, worked first at Baghdad branch of Kurdish organization tasked with protecting children in 2004, but when one of the organization's workers was killed during the sectarian strife in 2006, the branch closed its doors and Dahabi took the responsibility of dozens of children and continued taking care of them by himself.

Dahabi said he used to share with the children their sadness and happiness to compensate the loss of their parents, and pledged to take care of them until they can depend on themselves.

"I couldn't leave them to face unknown future; I rented a small house to be a shelter for the kids in order to teach them and protect them," said Dahabi who got a master degree in psychology.

The orphans' pensive father (Dahabi), whose emotions run silent and deep, said that he is providing various programs in his shelter that turned the orphan children, some of whom were carrying psychological problems with little confidence in themselves, to be creative persons.

Dahabi said he adopted a slogan for his safe house saying "Don't shed a tear, give me an idea instead," that would help develop his knowledge in how to offer better care for the orphans, so that they will be active elements in the society without a sense of injustice and marginalization.

He also said that his orphan's safe house gives great importance for the school teaching, therefore he provided a car to convey the children to their schools, and after that his programs will continue in the orphanage.

"As part of our psychological programs, we focus on the children's talents such as fine art. We have a theatre group, musicians and in cinema art we have participated in 15 films in cooperation with Iraqi Center for Independent Film, a private organization managed by the Iraqi well-known director Mohammed al-Darraji," Dahabi told Xinhua.

Other talent children are being trained at a music institute run by the famous Iraqi musician Maestro Kareem Wasfi, he said

Most of Dahabi's artistic successes depend on his personal efforts as the man explains the situation of his orphanage to famous Iraqi artists who immediately sympathize with his children and try to help by training them as much as they can.

"Applying such program was very successful, the kids here have turned to be creative artists," he said.

The orphan safe house is also training the children on computers, barber work and cooking, because such activities are relatively easy and do not need to invest much money, he added.

On his personal social media accounts, Dahabi received great deal of support from thousands of people. Many of them offer to help in his work and others are ready to offer donations for the children, while some volunteers are already helping the orphans in the safe house by helping them in their homework and solving their problems.

"My name is Husham al-Dahabi, I work with the displaced and orphan children. Within 11 years, I was able to let 33 orphan and displaced children be the most famous children in Iraq after they were awarded 27 international prizes in cinema art of acting and plastic art," Dahabi said on his Facebook page.

Dahabi, who relies solely on private donations, complained that the government does not support his project despite the great success that he achieved with those orphans.

As an example for his success, Dahabi said that he is preparing for the wedding of one of his orphans who grew up in his safe house since 2004.

"Now he becomes a man and has a job in the government, his salary is good, I am helping him to rent an apartment and we are furnishing it so he can get married in the next couple of months," Dahabi said jubilantly.

After the success of his project, Dahabi's dream is to collect all the orphan children in one place and turn them to be useful members in society instead of being used by others who could push them to be criminals and even terrorists.

"People have been pushing me to enlarge my project, so I declared my new dream project (of collecting all the orphan children). It is only a wish now and has been welcomed all over the world, and I already have 10,000 volunteers ready to join me," Dahabi said.

Dahabi demanded the Iraqi government to let him use an abandoned building of Mustansriyah super market in eastern Baghdad, and he offered to make renovation for the building by himself and let volunteers to collect all the orphan children in this large building.

He said that many cultural and non-governmental organizations are ready to participate in addition to thousands of volunteers who expressed their willingness to cooperate in the project.

"I pledge that within a year from receiving the building, I will give positive results about the children who will certainly be creative persons," Dahabi said despite that five months have passed since he first made his call for the government to give him the abandoned building.

"My dream is to see those children after 10 years in leading positions in society. They will lead society because they would grow up at a good and healthy environment and they will make difference to a better future of the country," Dahabi said, showing confidence in his words.

Alaa Hussein, 15, who was awarded a prize in drawing at an international competition in the United States among 250 other paints, told Xinhua "I feel safe and comfortable here. I can get everything I need."

"I have learnt drawing and I painted some 400 paints, and I learnt playing the violin here by good teachers who used to come and teach us," Hussein said.

Sayf, 14, whose father and mother were killed at a car bomb attack when he was four-year-old, said that he learnt acting in the safe house and got an international prize, but his dream is to be an engineer in order to participate in rebuilding his country that was devastated by wars and massive bombings.

Iraq has been witnessing some of the worse violence in years, as the surge of violence between armed groups, including the Islamic State (IS) group, and government forces has resulted in a dramatically increase in the number of orphans and widows to be more than three million in the country.

However, the recent report by the United Nations Office for Coordination and Humanitarian Afairs (OCHA) said that the violence has resulted in an estimated 3.2 million internally displaced people. Endit