#LoveLotus and Support our Emergency Covid-19 Appeal
#LoveLotus and Support our Emergency Covid-19 Appeal
This is a very difficult message for me to write. Covid-19 has hit the Lotus Flower hard and we’re in a position I never imagined we'd find ourselves in with only a few months of funding left. We desperately need to raise money to survive the weeks ahead, and extend the lifeline for the vulnerable women and girls we support.
First off, I thought it would be useful to explain why I, and so many others, have grown to #LoveLotus so passionately. My journey began in Kurdistan in northern Iraq four years ago, when I gave up my City job to become an aid worker following the brutal ISIS attacks in my homeland. As a child genocide survivor of Saddam Husseins era, I recognised only too well the pain and suffering unfolding before my eyes. In my own experience, I was taken as a political prisoner aged just four, and escaped being buried alive with my family. My father also survived a poisoning attempt before we eventually arrived in the UK as refugees in 1988.
Back in Kurdistan in 2014, nothing prepared me for reliving my childhood trauma, or witnessing another genocide in which hundreds of thousands of innocent people were displaced, and women and girls raped, tortured and forced into sex slavery. For 15 months I worked on the frontline, aware of the hotels packed with the world's media, clamouring to report on the humanitarian crisis. Four years on, the displacement and suffering remain, but the hotels are empty; this forgotten generation no longer make headlines.
Back in the UK, I realised how lucky I'd been to have so many opportunities to rebuild my life. I knew I couldn't individually rescue all the women and girls I'd seen, but I recognised I could build the structures they needed to resume their lives. Stuck in primitive camps, they needed safe spaces. They needed healing. They needed the tools and training to rebuild. And they needed each other. So that's how the Lotus Flower came to be.
Founded in my living room, with no money and no network of support, the Lotus Flower has meant everything to me ever since. Despite being a single mum trying to hold down another job, I knew it was my destined path. Before long, I hired a Regional Project Manager, and our first priority was to establish a safe social space for women and girls. Finally, they had somewhere to seek refuge, to talk, to bond, and to begin their recovery. Over time, our activities and our staffing grew, and with an International Project Manager on board, we grew the Lotus Flower into a credible, well-run charity which has now supported more than 26,000 women and girls.
We have worked tirelessly to lay the foundations, implement proper procedures and create a clear model for funding. We created six core pillars: Education, Livelihoods, Mental Health, Peacebuilding, Human rights, Health and Wellbeing each with gender equality at their root. Working directly with the community, we've built up deep trust and strong relationships, and our holistic approach provides tailored support to each woman and girl.
We now have Lotus Flower centres in three separate camps, and operate in others on an outreach basis. We have more than 20 local staff members, many of whom are employed from within the camps, and we have implemented over 30 projects to date. We've achieved all of this in just four years, on a minimal budget, which is why it breaks my heart to know that we are rapidly running out of the funds needed to keep going.
What started out as a personal determination to give back has grown into a fully thriving, actively-used, and desperately needed community service. Women, girls, men, boys and grandparents all benefit from our work, and we want to keep providing the skills, training and support that enable them to earn a living for themselves. We also want to keep offering the mental health support which is so badly needed, and the empowering safe spaces that mean so much.
So that's why I #LoveLotus: for everything it stands for, for what it provides and for the dedicated staff who keep it going day and night despite low salaries. Ultimately, I #LoveLotus for the smiles it has put back on women and girls faces.
Our plan for 2020 was to shore up our organisational development and grow our financial reserves. But then the Covid-19 struck. In a heartbeat, donors pulled out and agreed funding collapsed. Small charities like ours have been decimated. We've been hit from all sides and I'm sad to say that we are teetering on the brink.
In spite of this, we've still been giving our all to those in the camps, because we know that Covid-19 hit them far harder than us. We adapted quickly and moved key services like mental health support to online and remote delivery. Weve kept as many of our projects going as possible, but theres still no escaping the dire impact of Covid, including the worrying spikes in gender-based violence, early marriage and even suicide. This is on top of an emerging mental health crisis, and the loss of jobs and income.
Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a Catch-22 situation, because while our help and support is needed more acutely than ever before, we face a catastrophic funding shortfall. Your donation will therefore make a massive difference, enabling us to ride out the next few months, until bigger resources arrive. We have 30 days to hit our target, so please support this generation of forgotten women and girls and encourage others to do the same.
Join us and join them, and show that you #LoveLotus too.
Thank you so much for reading.
Taban Shoresh,
Founder, The Lotus Flower