A boy leans his face against a wall as a policeman stands guard during a search operation in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) south of Baghdad, March 25, 2008. REUTERS/Mushtaq Muhammed

DEARBORN – Four local women, all college students in their twenties, have started a new charity aimed at providing medical care to children in Iraq, and are looking for help from Arab American and other concerned communities.

Duaa AlTaee, 20, one of the organizers of Iraqi Youth Union, said that a severe lack of medical supplies in the country has had a devastating effect on families there, and that no one seems to be paying attention to the problem.

“They don’t have enough,” she said. “People die waiting for treatment in public hospitals. It’s been ignored. It’s been overshadowed by politics, power and oil. That’s all anything has been focused on.”

AlTaee started the group along with Noor AlAttbi, 21, Zainab AlMuradi, 21, and Duaa AlKarawy, 20, as an offshoot of the Kalamazoo-based group Iraqi Health Now.

Iraqi Youth Union helps raise funds and resources in the Detroit area to add to the original group’s efforts sending to Iraq supplies like first-aid materials, gauze, bandages, crutches, wheel chairs and lab equipment.

The new organization’s biggest success yet has been securing $75,000-worth of lab equipment for shipment, donated by a doctor in Bloomfield Hills.

AlTaee said the group is developing committees of doctors and lawyers to support the efforts.

She said that part of the motivation for starting Iraqi Youth Union was the feeling of helplessness felt when watching violence and turmoil unfold in the news.

“Usually there’s not much we can do, but we’re trying to help someone,” she said.

The two groups currently send supplies to one hospital in Iraq, with hopes of expanding to expanding to include more across the country.

AlTaee declined to say on record where exactly the hospital is, because she said the group hopes to attract support from the Iraqi community as a whole and from the wider Arab American community, and doesn’t want to be associated with a particular part of Iraq or a particular sect.

“Let’s unite for these kids,” she said. “Their voices have been buried.”

She said that a shortage in some simple materials can often be fatal.

One woman, she said, died recently because there was no anesthesia available.  “They gave her horse anesthesia.”

In addition to sending supplies, the group is also pushing efforts to bring children in particularly grave conditions to the U.S. for treatment.

Two children, a girl named Aya and a boy named Mahdi, are currently on the group’s list, and will be brought to the U.S., treated and returned to Iraq if Iraqi Youth Union can secure the funding and legal support.

So far, the new group has been able to gather and ship two twenty-foot containers full of supplies from the Detroit area. AlTaee said the cost to send each container is about $4,000.

A fundraising dinner is set for May 29 at Byblos Banquet Hall.

For information contact Duaa AlTaee at 248.225.1733 or daltaee@umich.edu.