Damien Mulley

John Reynolds runs 4Basra which aims to get aid to a childrend Hospital in the bruised and bloody country that Iraq now is. This is his guest post:

“There are so many needy causes out there and I prefer to support the ones that do more than just ask for donations.”

Ouch. That has been the only negative response I’ve had so far. Iraq has edged out of the media spotlight, as Brian Cathcart in the New Statesman pointed out last week, but thankfully there are people willing to support a cause there. Initially I’d hoped 4Basra would somehow find an idea for a social business – like Heart of Africa, for example – that meets the following aims:

• Provides a return to an investor or existing business (on which we might piggy-back to minimise start-up costs)
• While also generating a profit that can be used to help provide medicines and supplies for a children’s hospital
• Has some connection to one, some or all of the key themes of supporting a children’s hospital in Basra: children, medicine and Iraq

Many readers of this blog are good with ideas…do get in touch if you have any. In the meantime, I’ve been lucky enough to have some kind help from the following people:

• Two UK-based doctors; the founders of Media Lens, and a couple of their supporters
• John Pilger at the New Statesman, who will shortly be writing about the situation in Iraq.
• The Irish Medical News and the Irish Medical Times
• Dr John Teeling and Stephen Teeling, of Cooley Whiskey and David Horgan, of Petrel Resources, who have kindly donated a case of special edition rare Irish whiskey for us to raffle.
• Senator David Norris
• Piaras Kelly at Edelman PR

I’d love to be able to say that I’ve come up with a social business model that means I won’t have to ask people for any more donations or support. The reality is that I haven’t. The only way we can help at the moment is by fundraising, to help pay for vital medicines and supplies. So we’re also hoping to get enough doctors – here in Ireland, in Britain, and possibly in Switzerland and Austria – to sign an appeal. If we have enough support, we stand a chance of getting back in the media spotlight – if even only briefly – as the two doctors who are helping me did in the London Independent, on 19 January this year. If you’d like to support us, or make a donation, or have a chance of winning that case of whiskey, and a number of books I’m hoping will be donated shortly, please email me on john at 4basra.org

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 12:53 pm and is filed under irishblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.