Deployment to: Kurdistan, Iraq!

I will be going as a volunteer crisis responder & humanitarian aid worker to Iraq with CRI in early August.*

By August 1st, I need to raise 4,000 USD to completely cover all deployment related expenses.This includes:
-currency exchange rates (USD>JPY>IQD)
-transport (international & local)
-food, lodging and
-miscelaneous related expenses

UNICEF estimated displacement of 1.5 million people in Iraq due to recent events in the country. This number excludes the ongoing Syrian war crisis which has already caused many Syrians to flee to safe zones in Iraq for refuge.

The UN has ranked this present crisis a level 3; highest on their measurement scale. Additionally this is the third level 3 situation in Iraq and the first time a single country has three level 3 designations. (Ref. Washington Post) 

CRI has been actively responding in the region since early 2014 by sending medical mission, chaplaincy and training teams. Due to the present situation, CRI is now calling for deployment by responders organization wide. This will be my 3rd deployment with CRI. I guided a disaster response team around Japan post 3.11 and responded to Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda in the Philippines last December where our team partnered with doctors and provided administrative and trauma counseling for a medical mission to previously unreached areas.

Presently, I live in Tokyo, Japan and run The Altar IHOP, Tokyo. I'm originally from Alaska, USA and have been in Japan since 1999. For more information about me, please also check out my blog Gracey4Journey. 

*Due safety & security concerns for in-country responders, unfortunately many specific details cannot be made public at this time. 
** Photo above is our CRI team December 2013 on a relief goods distribution run. It was the home village of the off duty police man (red shirt, right front). He was one of our 2 police escorts. We were on Leyte Island in the Philippines.