Message from the Senior Programme Manager, Mr. Pehr Lodhammar
What a tumultuous yet transformative and rewarding year it has been! When I look back at 2020, the challenges brought forth with the emergence and swift transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic seem almost surreal, albeit the resulting disruption to our operations was very much real, bringing with it a myriad of problems that we had to solve together. Undoubtedly, 2020 was a lesson to all of us, everywhere in the world, about what is important in our lives: health, safety, security, livelihood, and family. We should never take anything for granted so long as we have all of these life essentials. Anything else is just added luxury.
Certainly, these realizations, more manifested in the last year than ever, have enhanced my self-reflection and prompted me to reevaluate my work in the Iraqi context once again. More than three decades of war, destruction, and socio-political strife have devastated the country, both physically and psychologically. Indeed, what does it say when items of war become a part of people’s daily reality? In schools, in hospitals, and in roads, particularly in areas retaken from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other forms of explosive ordnance continue to threaten the lives of civilians, haunting Iraqis, and children in particular, across the country. This is unacceptable. Iraqis, and no one anywhere, should have to grow accustomed to these weapons of destruction as part of their daily routine.
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Source: UNMAS