Search Results for: Saad

It took several hours to bring in all the packages, open them, hang the paintings, set up the tv. We are helping Saad to get cable next week, he will be able to watch Arabic tv channels and will fell less isolated and alone. Maria brought hooks and a hammer, Saad asked her to put the photos anywhere she wished, and she did.

Maria is amazing at figuring out where art should go and hanging it. Thanks to Susan Popper for the prints, Rachel Barlow for the paintings, Kathleen for some of the money, and the Army of Good for everything else.

He flipped over the linen map of Arabia she donated, he pointed out every single country to us. Slowly, the walls begin to fill up, the room looked warmer and lived in, the echo  was gone when we spoke, and Saad was a very happy and grateful. man.

He wanted me to thank the  people who contributed to this support and assistance, he is not sure what the Army Of Good, but he wanted me to thank you also. And I do.

If you wish to continue to support me in this work, you can send a contribution to the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz,  P.O. Box 205,  Cambridge, N.Y.,12816 or via Paypal, [email protected]. More photos of this special day coming.

Two weeks ago, Saad was virtually homeless, with no money for an apartment deposit. Today, he has an apartment in a good and space place, tools to communicate with his world, a chance to figure out how to find work and live in America, and perhaps recover some of the health he lost in a brutal country and a dangerous refugee camp.

You all made it happen, my heart sings out to you in gratitude.

There is absolutely no better feeling than I had this afternoon  driving to an apartment near Albany with Maria and meeting Ali and Saad Alaney to help him begin to put his life together.

To his amazed surprise, we brought him a carful of things for his new one-bedroom apartment, two long bus rides and another world from his English language classes in Albany.

The apartment has been so empty it echoes when we speak inside. We changed that today. We brought him six paintings and posters for the walls, a large screen TV, a radio, a linen map of Arabia, a fan,an Arabian-English dictionary, cables for his TV. He has enough food, but I noticed his jacket is worn and ripped in the back. A new one is on the way.

He is loving his new Iphone 6, finally able to talk to his wife and children in Baghdad every day.

Maria and Ali and I had great fun helping Saad set up these things, he is a courteous and generous and polite man. We believe he can take it from here, he paid the deposit for his apartment and the first months rent, he says he doesn’t want any more help, he wants to learn how to be independent and live in America.

Saad knows he can call us anytime, he knows how to reach us and we know how to reach him. It was a sweet and rewarding day.

I come from a refugee family, and this is what I set out to do even before the Army Of Good, a brigade of angels, appeared. I am now doing it, finding refugees in urgent need, helping them stabilize their lives, helping them to become independent.

I know what it means to be a  refugee in a strange land. I know what it means to help a refugee in a strange land.

He has food, proper clothing, a warm and safe place to live, access to his culture on TV and his phone, a new jacket that will last until winter. the medicine he needs, a sofa and chair to sit on, a radio to listen to and Arab-English reading and learning materials.

The rest is up to him now. He knows America is a Darwinian country, not a socialist state. People have to stand on their own. Sometimes they need just a bit of help. Saad bravely came to the U.S. Embassy to work for them during that awful war, and it nearly cost him his life.

He was living in Baghdad before his life fell apart.

I can’t explain how good it made me feel to do this, Maria also. Ali and she and I were just lit up, almost high.

“How can I ever thank you?,” Saad blurted out after checking with his dictionary. “You are nothing but a gift to me,” I said.

It feels good to repay him in some small measure. I’ll put up some more photos from this festive and happy day.

Saad’s tv came today, and that concludes the work we are doing to acclimate him in his new apartment, which we helped him get last week. This is a stellar case of how the Army Of Good can work, efficiently, appropriately, and humanely.

Here is what we have done to date for Saad, a once prosperous and successful Iraqi cut off from home and family, and without resources. Saad, who worked with the U.S. Embassy during the Iraq war, and who lost  everything afterwards, was in danger of being killed by religious extremists and made it to a U.N. refugee camp, where was relocated to the United States in a lottery program now being discontinued by our government.

Without any money or support, he had to leave a one-room apartment he  shared with another man. He was in desperate need of help.

What we are doing for him:

We paid the deposit on his apartment, he is paying the monthly rent. This enabled him to move in. We are also paying the deposit for cable for his apartment, and the first three months cable charge.

We gave him $200 to trade in his old and broken cellphone for a new Iphone 6 with which he can e-mail, text message and communicate with his eight children, who are in Iraq and are unable to come to the United States due to our governments’ new immigration policies. He also seems to love Face Time, he prefers it to regular phone calls. This has reconnected him to his family and to his lost world.

On Sunday, Ali and I are bringing him the following:

At 32 inch screen TV, that will connect to his new cable and permit him to see arabic channels and programming. He has heart disease and diabetes, and is not yet able to work or find work, although he keeps on looking. He wants to work and is taking English classes. As of now, there is nothing for him to do or see in his apartment, he is the only person in the building who speaks only arabic.

Four framed prints, art scenes and flowers to put on his bare walls.

Two original water color paintings from Vermont Artist  Rachel Barlow, donated by her.

A linen map of Arabia, donated by Maria, she had it in her studio, it was sent by a reader of her blog.

A new RCA radio so he can listen to music, which he loves.

We’ll bring Saad these things on Sunday (he doesn’t know yet, it’s a surprise. I’ll be there to take photos.

We are also bringing a months worth of groceries and toiletries.

This will conclude, for now, our work with Saad.

We’ll keep an eye on him, and Ali will make sure all of these items are working and connected. We will check in on him  once or twice a week, but the idea is for him to be independent as quickly as possible, this is his life now, and he has to figure out how he can live it. We will move on to other needy cases.

Our role is to help people get started and  stable, not to take over their lives.

Saad is in a good place now. Last week he was a desperate  wreck with hope and some peace of mind. That feels good.

As some of you know, I’m trying to raise $1,800 in support of Hawah Altoun, a Libyan refugee cast out of her apartment and forced into a homeless shelter because the city welfare department cut her rent subsidy by $150 a month to help pay for medical care for her critically ill husband Hassan, who has spinal cancer and is in a coma.

As with many other refugees I have met,  Hawah came to America after her life was shattered, and then essentially abandoned her to fend for herself. She speaks no English, and has no specific skills.

Because she couldn’t pay the full amount with the full subsidy, she was locked out of her apartment and went with her two sons to a shelter, which she calls” the dirtiest place on earth.” In Libya, she and Hassan had a good and prosperous life, he worked for 14 years as a large crane operator. Every morning at 4 a.m., she goes out into Albany’s streets to collect bottles, for which she collects between $5 and $6.

The money I am seeking to raise will pay the $150 a month she needs to pay the full rent for one year. She is taking English lessons and looking constantly for work. She wants no other help, she is a strong, proud and very ethical person. This is the first time in her life that she has asked for help or  accepted it. “Please, please,  get me out of her,” she messaged Ali this morning in Arabic.

So far, I have collected $600 for this project. We need $1,100 more to get her out of that shelter. You can help by contributing to “Hawah”, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. Thanks. I will not be at ease until she is “out of there” with her two young boys. That shelter is no place for them either.

Our program to help Saad continues in earnest this week, he traded in an old and nearly inoperable old phone to a cell phone company offering a special trade-in deal and got a new Iphone 6 for $200. With his old phone, he had extremely limited usage, both in time and range, he could not call home, or even make many calls here.

Saad’s isolation is pronounced, he has been cut off from all friends and family members and in need of a place to live. Last week, we paid the deposit to get him into a senior citizen facility just outside of Albany, and  today, he got a phone with global range and we raised enough money to pay the monthly fees for a year.

He has unlimited calling on the Iphone, and the first call he made was to Iraq, where his family remains behind. Saad was targeted by religious extremists and fled to a refugee camp run by the United Nations. Because he worked at the U.S. Embassy during the war, he managed to get a visa to the United States and  was taken to Los Angeles and left on his own.

Saad could hardly believe that he can call home anytime he wants. Obviously, the phone will also help him communicate here, and he insists he wants to find work, even though he has heart disease, diabetes, low blood pressure and 15 different prescription medications to take. He told me he hopes to be an Uber driver one day, but his doctor says he should not work. Saad is in his 60’s. And his health would almost certainly disqualify him.

There may be other kinds of jobs where he can work.

He could not afford to live in Albany. The crowded room where he lived in central Albany with others was sold, he made his way to Albany because he heard there were other refugees there and some support from RISSE, the refugee and immigrant center. He is taking English classes there.

In the winter, he often appeared in the mornings at RISSE, cold and hungry. One hand shakes almost continuously with some kind of palsy.

Saad  was forced to leave the small apartment in Albany where he was living with another refugee. He could pay the rent, but not the deposit for a new apartment.

Saad speaks almost no English, and is receiving a small monthly stipend from the city of Albany. He receives enough money from New York State  to pay his $144 a month rent in a building where no one speaks Arabic.

He lives now in a one-bedroom apartment with a bed, a table, a sofa and a lamp and nothing on any of the walls.

We gave him $400 to help move him into the apartment and pay the deposit. He has almost no belongings.

He knows no one in his building or nearby.

He has no car and travels only by bus. We are getting him a special bus pass for  seniors.

Saad’s isolation there was disturbing, both to Ali, who brought him to me, and to me.

The new phone will help considerably, he can re-connect to the people and family he knew and loved in Baghdad, including his eight children, who have so far been denied permission to join him here in America.

Saad was a successful  businessman in  Baghdad after the war, but his business was confiscated by the government to help pay for their war against ISIS. He has absolutely nothing left.

We will also be bringing enough groceries to last for the next month or so. We furnished his apartment through the generosity of several local churches. Ali visits him regularly to see  how he is doing.

On Wednesday, another step towards helping Saad establish himself in America. I’m bringing him a new radio, a new 32-inch screen television, an Arabic-American dictionary, two original water-color paintings donated by Rachel Barlow, a well-known Vermont artist, and some pots and pans, and a linen wall map of the Arab Peninsula.

Four framed wall prints are on the way for his apartment.

The television will also help his isolation, there are several Arabic channels he will be able to listen to. We’ve decided against getting a computer for him.  He doesn’t want one, and hasn’t used one, and the Iphone will connect to the cable system we are purchasing for him.

We will monitor Saad and check in on him throughout the year, but after this week we will change our focus to another refugee family in urgent need More about that later.  Our philosophy is help people with small and manageable problems, we work on a small scale.

Thanks to the Army Of Good for your support.

If you wish to help this refugee work, you can send a contribution to The Gus Fund, c/o me, Jon Katz. P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. We commit small acts of great kindness, we keep good alive.

Last year, a reader of Maria’s blog send her this linen wall map of Arabia, Maria has donated it to the Saad project, it is heading for his bare living room wall.

My friend Rachel Barlow also brought me an Arab-English dictionary that will help him learn English in his new apartment building – he is the only resident in this very large senior building who speaks Arablc.

When we get his new TV hooked up and cable installed, he will have access to arabic TV channels.

He is working hard at learning English, he wants to find work if his health will allow. I love this map, it is perfect for his new apartment. There are also four framed prints coming and two original water colors. I will be providing details of this work all week, including on Wednesday, when we bring many of these new things to him.

We cannot run his life or pay for it, either, nor do we want to. We can help him be safe and get started on his new life in America, someone no one bothered to do when he came her, rushed out of Ira to keep him  from religious extremists who had targeted  him for working in the U.S. Embassy during the war, and then abandoned.

We are setting it right and helping to give him the start he deserves, he is a good and gentle man. Thanks for coming along on this journey. He has not come to harm us or take our jobs.