➡ Broken in to a thousand pieces!🤕🤕

KH20151209002-(6).jpg This project was one of the biggest and most time consuming projects I have ever done. I started thinking about the idea in September, while visiting the refugee camp for once or twice a week I saw how bad their circumstance was especially concerning their clothing. I had seen so many children without shoes and ripped clothes. Every time I came back from the refugee camp I came back with a heart broken into a thousand pieces.

After a few days of doing research at the camp to see whether there would be any distribution for winter clothing, I got the information that none of the organizations working at the camp were planning to distribute. After gathering all the information I needed, I decided to discuss it with my boss. He agreed that winter clothing for the refugees was very important especially because no other organization was planning to provide for the winterization. He reminded me of the importance of collecting money to realize the project. He advised me to contact my colleagues from Germany, inform them about my idea and whether we have the funding for it. He gave me green lights and told me that I had to keep him up to date.

To be honest my goal was to provide every family inside the camp with winter coats and shoes, if that was too expensive, we could choose for blankets or gloves and scarves. Just anything that would give the refugees a warm winter. With the team in Erbil we also discussed the possibility of people donating clothes instead of money, however then we would face a problem with the requirement of a large amount of logistics, sorting the clothes and so on. That is why the best option was to raise the money and buy new coats and shoes for the refugees, which they deserve the most instead of old and second handed clothing.

I had to go to wholesales and check the prices for the coats and shoes to calculate the average I needed for one child or adult to fully clothe. We came to the calculation, for one adult we needed approximately forty euro and one child thirty euro. The next day we arranged a meeting with the manager of the refugee camp to get some concrete numbers on how many adults and children were living inside the camp.

The Camp consisted of 1.350 families. This was when I got a wake up call, I had to focus on a particular group because it was impossible to help them all. I got very disappointed of this fact but I had to live with it and make the best out of it. As a team we decided that the best choice would be to provide the whole primary school with winter coats and shoes, especially because those children go outside their tents the most and have to spend the whole day inside the cold class rooms. After we took this decision I got great news from Germany, we got a funding of 15.000 euro to buy the coats and shoes with. The next few weeks we were busy with arranging a meeting with the principal of the primary school inside the refugee camp. From him I got the following numbers and also the names and ages of the pupils which I am not allowed to include in this portfolio.

Thus in total 1.300 pupils, with a budget of 15.000 euro. I went back to the wholesales of coats and shoes to negotiate about the prices and we came to great agreements. For shoes we had to pay approximately four euro per pair and for coats approximately eight euro. That is 1,300 x € 4 = € 5,200 for 1,300 pair of shoes and 1.300 x 8 = 10,400 for 1.300 coats. This means a total of € 15,600, while our budget was 15,000. I send the numbers to the head office in Germany and they managed to raise the budget. The project was ready to start.

It all sounds as everything went very smooth, which was not the case. Something that I have witnessed here in a developing country especially in a conflict country, people tend to be very negative. I had never in my life experienced so many negative people around me. Their view on life is very negative, especially about their future. It may be unknown but you have to make the best out of it. If you start something with negativity how do you expect it to turn out positively?

When I discussed the idea to help 1,300 children instead of 100, every one panicked and gave me a thousand reasons why it would not work out and why we should not do the project. I had to go out of the office at least two times a day to take a breath, calm down and go inside again and prove them wrong. I had moments that I did not want to ask anyone anything anymore to do, that I was going to do everything by myself, however that is not how it is going to work especially if you are a team. In a group there are different kinds of people, especially at work or at school usually you do not get to choose your own group, you have to learn to work with them and their way of working. No one is the same, which also counts for the way we work and see life. Life is about accepting someone as they are and try to understand each other. My first year as a student of International and European Law I started working on the projects with such a diverse group of people from all parts of the world. That was when I learned to work with different people and cultures. As much as I love to work on my own, I also love to work in a team, because you are much stronger together, especially with big projects, you need each other. The more people you meet and get to know the more you get to know the world, cultures and religions.

I realized instead of proving them wrong the whole time I had to listen to what their concerns were and why they were looking at every point in a negative way. When I started taking my time to listen to the team and show them that I did understand why they were scared and concerned that it would not work out which I was too, however the only way to make something work is to work very hard for it and believe in it, we got stronger as a team. After this the communication and collaboration with everyone went well, everyone did their task. We grew so fast as a team and got to know each other very well. We were not only colleagues but we became friends and it felt even like family.

I have never been scared of new challenges, deadlines, getting exhausted and stress. As long as I love what I do I do not mind. You have to get out of your comfort zone to get to know yourself and others, if you want to grow not only as a person but grow in your legal carrier you should not be scared but take the challenges and show who you are. Show your ambitions, motivation, interests and believes. Work hard to achieve your goals, but chose the work you love.

This project may have been the most challenging and time consuming project I have ever done but it was a project which gave the most smiles to the people in need, which means everything to me. The day of distribution went very good, the news channels were present, we had the permission to distribute, the children were ready to get their winter coats and shoes and the weather was beyond perfect for a distribution day. We have been working even on our days of for this project which was all worth it.