4Basra

As the lady who runs the NGO is currently on holiday, so I probably won’t hear any more from her for a while. It gives me a bit of time to get the office organised as soon as I can. 

Meanwhile, I have received encouraging emails from friends to whom I mentioned my ideas. 

I have also done a bit more research, and have located what seems to be an influential group of Iraqis who are starting an airline.

July 13 2006

I reply to the email from the lady running the NGO. She would welcome any assistance in securing supplies of Leukaemia drugs, which are very expensive and beyond the reach of their budget at the moment.

I mention that I have located a manufacturer of the generic Leukaemia drug Imanitib – The Orion Group, who are based in Bangladesh – adding that I am unsure how best to approach them. 

Novartis, are based in Switzerland, and for their part, they run the GIPAP programme, offering the generic version of Glivec. 

Meanwhile, our rental offer on the office in Dublin has been accepted. This is great news and means I can now see if I can find a third guy to share the office, in order to keep the costs to a minimum.

I receive a reply to my email. The lady in charge of the small NGO has just returned form Kuwait, where she met two doctors from Basra and organised a consignment of medical aid for the hospital there.

She welcomes any support and asks if I will be in mid-Europe any time soon, as she would be interested in meeting me.

In the meantime, I am looking into sharing an office in Dublin, where I will have a bit more peace and quiet than at home, and hopefully a bit more time to spend on this project.Although the Daft website is popular for people looking to buy, sell, rent or share commercial and residential property, I also post an ad on the Gumtree website.

A number of replies are forthcoming, one from a self-employed guy who is also looking for office space in south Dublin or the city centre.

After viewing one horrendously-priced office in Dun Laoghaire, a southside suburb of Dublin, and several weeks of phone calls and exchanging emails, a friend of my new acquaintance mentions there is space in the office building where she works, and we arrange to take a look as soon as possible.

2 July 2006

Having recently researched and written the history of Oxfam Ireland, whose growth spans several decades, I began to wonder how long it would take to establish a similar organisation today. 

After reading this article on the BBC News website, I looked at the source of the story, the UN IRIN News agency, and sent an email to one of the staff there. Today, Salma Zulfiqar has been kind enough to reply with two email addresses.

I recognise one of them as the address for a small European organisation, whose website I was taken to by Google whilst researching the logistics of transporting aid to Basra in Iraq.

It takes me a day or two, in between other work, to compose an email to the woman who runs it.

And so it begins…