It’s an image Sandra Gunselman, Ph.D., can’t get out of her mind: Iraqi children being freed from prison by coalition forces.
The children, some of whom had been imprisoned for as long as five years, were detained because they refused to join the youth branch of the Baath party.
“My heart just ached for them,” said Dr. Gunselman, a research assistant professor
in UNMC’s School of Allied Health Professions.
So when she read an article on the Internet about an effort by a Texas businessman to rebuild the Boy and Girl Scouting program in Iraq, Dr. Gunselman, whose son, Micah, is a Boy Scout in the Mid-America Council, decided to help.
Since May, Dr. Gunselman has worked with Michael Bradle, chairman of the Iraqi International Foundation, to raise awareness and garner support for the Iraqi Scouting Initiative.
Bradle, an Eagle Scout since 1981, created the non-profit foundation to help find positive solutions to the many problems facing Iraqis today. His first project: bring scouting back to the children of Iraq.
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Local scouting units in the Soaring Eagle District of the Mid-America Council are collecting new or gently used camping equipment to send to Iraqi scouts. Anyone wishing to donate new or used camping equipment can bring items to the Fall Encounter on Oct. 15-17 at Chalco Hills Recreation Area, 154th Street and Giles Road. Sports Authority is offering a discount on camping equipment purchased as a donation to the Iraqi Scouting Initiative. The Iraqi International Foundation is selling commemorative Iraqi Scout patches to help raise money to rebuild the scouting program for the youth of Iraq. Patches are $11.25 each and can be ordered by contacting the foundation at (515) 556-4100 or via e-mail at mike@tejascorp.com or by sending checks or money orders to Iraqi International Foundation, P. O. Box 1017, Lampasas, Texas 76550. Contributions to the Iraqi Scouting Initiative also can be made through the Boy Scouts of America’s United States Fund for International Scouting or World Friendship Fund. Donations should be designated “to help restart scouting in Iraq” and mailed to: Boy Scouts of America, National Council, 1325 West Walnut Hill Lane, For more information on the Iraqi International Foundation check out the Web site at: www.iraqiinternationalfoundation.org. |
Ironically, in February a military training camp along the Tigris River in Baghdad, once used by Saddam’s secret police, was transferred into the possession of the Iraqi National Scout Council by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the former Coalition Provisional Authority administrator.
“But we need to raise a minimum of $4 million to restore this complex and convert it into a scout camp, training center and national headquarters,” Dr. Gunselman said.
In order to raise money to meet these goals every scout unit around the country is being asked to participate in Operation Pocket Change. During September, Boy and Girl Scouts will be asked to put their daily pocket change into a jar for one week, Dr. Gunselman said.
They also will approach local businesses and ask permission to put a jar next to their cash registers for one week. All proceeds will go to the Iraqi Scouting Initiative.
“Councils around the country are looking for ways to raise funds in addition to Operation Pocket Change,” Dr. Gunselman said.
The Iraqi scouts will also need something else, she said – camping equipment. “They don’t have anything,” she said, “so I am asking our local scouting units in the Soaring Eagle District of the Mid-America Council, to collect new or gently used camping equipment.”
Each troop will then bring those items to the Fall Encounter, a weekend gathering of Cub and Boy Scouts. The Fall Encounter will be Oct. 15-17 at Chalco Hills Recreation Area, 154th Street and Giles Road, and will be open to the general public.
“Anyone who wants to can donate camping equipment and bring it to the Fall Encounter,” Dr. Gunselman said. “Sports Authority is offering a discount on camping items purchased specifically as a donation to the Iraqi Scouting Initiative.”
In a show of appreciation for all of the work by local scouters, Bradle will attend the Fall Encounter, as well as Barakat Jassem, vice chairman of the Iraqi International Foundation board of directors and former Scout.
“I am quite happy that people here are responding positively to the help that the Iraqi International Foundation aims to do for the Iraqi people and to build understanding between the two peoples of Iraq and America,” said Jassem, who will camp with the Boy Scouts at Chalco Hills.
“After the long suffering the people of Iraqi endured during Saddam’s regime,
they desire help from the international community in reviving their civic institutions, in building a civil society and in helping them rule themselves in order to get back the right to participate actively in this international event and be good help for their neighbors and all the world,” Jassem said.
Volunteer scouting was first introduced in Iraq in 1921 but was outlawed under Saddam Hussein. Iraq eventually lost membership in the World Scouting Organization. In 2003, members of the Coalition Provisional Authority set out to discover the fate of the Iraqi scouting program, Dr. Gunselman said. They found a handful of scouters, she said, including Abduillah Al-Jumailly, director of the Iraqi National Scout Council, who survived the war and kept the program alive.
“It is just amazing, but proof of the important need for this type of program,” Dr. Gunselman said.
As the committee chairman for her son’s Boy Scout Troop 430, Dr. Gunselman is a strong supporter of scouting and what it does to foster values and instill confidence in youths.
“Scouting has made my son, Micah, and I a lot closer and just better people,” she said. “Imagine what it can do for the youth of Iraq who are the future of that country.”