SCM is having a clothing and soft goods drive to benefit SCM’s programs. We are partnering with another organization to turn your donated clothing (including accessories like handbags, duffel bags, scarves, ties, hats, mittens and gloves, etc) bedding, towels, curtains, tablecloths, shoes (all kinds), socks, etc, into cash that we can use to support our programs.

Please bring your items in plastic garbage bags to our office at 3806 Whitman Ave. N, Seattle, WA 98103 before February 26th. No moldy or mildewy items, please!

If you have a large amount of items, please call us (206-545-7307) before bringing them by the office so we can have the space ready and people to help unload your vehicle.

If you live in another city and would like to help, call us. We can have the organization we are working with contact you to organize your own local drive – it’s easy!

Thank you!

We had another distribution event yesterday (January 19th), with a session in the morning and one in the afternoon. Volunteers came to help and we also did more organizing and loading up the shelves!

Below are photos from the food distribution we held just 2 days ago, and the others are photos from the container that just arrived and is being unloaded into our warehouse in Madaba.

Thank you everyone that donated to the food drive. We were able to distribute the food to refugees in the Madaba are, and will do more as more funds come in. This is one of the fastest ways we can help the refugees- cash donated to us in the US is wired to our office in Madaba and they turn around and purchase food from a local grocer that we have negotiated a special price with for the items in the package. The turn around can be very quick, ensuring your donation gets put to use immediately for the people that need it most.

The goods that arrived in the container are winter clothes, blankets, coats, and more. They will be organized in the warehouse and distributed within the next few days.

Syria facing ‘medical disaster’ as eradicated diseases return

PARIS // Syria is facing a “medical and humanitarian disaster” after nearly four years of war have gutted the country’s health care system, leading to a return of eradicated diseases, a group of Syrian doctors said in Paris on Monday.

A lack of doctors, supplies and drugs have plunged the country back into the medical dark ages, with polio and scabies back with a vengeance as many children are no longer vaccinated, while the majority of births take place at home.

“The situation is unbearable, catastrophic and many in Syria no longer have access to medical care,” said Oubaida Al Moufti, a French-Syrian doctor and member of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations (UOSSM).

He was speaking to journalists late on Monday at the foreign ministry in Paris which lends support to the organisation. (continued)

Continue to full article, click here.

We often think of the Middle East as hot and dusty, desert and palm trees, so how could it possibly be so cold people could freeze to death? Yes, it does get very cold in the winter in many places of the Middle East, particularly in the Levant region which is Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Over the past several years, there have been snow storms, followed by freezing temperatures, then to make things even worse, the snow melts just enough to cause flooding and more misery. The storm hitting the region now is called Huda in Jordan and Zina in Lebanon.

Winter storm brings misery to Middle East refugees

This year is no different, and snow storm is descending on the region again today. The Syrian refugees who are living in tents have little to keep them warm, and freezing to death is a very real possibility. Please help us get them blankets to keep them warm during this onslaught of winter weather. We need monetary donations that we can wire immediately to our office in Jordan so the staff there can go and buy blankets and distribute them in the next few days. Please donate on our website here by clicking the Pay Pal Donate button or click this link here to donate to the general fund, which will go to buy blankets.

Snow in the Beqaa in Lebanon from winter storm Zina, as it is called in Lebanon.

Thank you!

More about the winter storm:

Levant braces for violent Huda Snowstorm

~by Emilie Whitman

In a camp of over a hundred thousand displaced people, the number our psych team spoke with that day was small. We’d all been crammed into a tiny trailer to see patients in the Arab Medical Relief (AMR) compound in Al-Zaatari. After a while Dad and I left with a translator to a Saudi-funded compound, where some people were waiting to see a psychologist.

I jotted down the first woman’s name and date of birth, 1971. We learned that she’d been forced to marry a 55 year-old when she was thirteen. “A very hard life,” she called it.

Continue to read the full post, click here.