Who are we?

The Kurdistan Children's Fund (KCF) is an international aid organisation delivering humanitarian relief to the persecuted Kurdish population of Iraqi Kurdistan (northern Iraq). The KCF places special emphasis on the youngest victims of the long campaign of terror and genocide against the Kurdish people. Many of the children we help have been orphaned and are living in ruined towns and villages that have been systematically destroyed by Iraqi military action over the past three decades.

When were we formed? and why?

In the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, millions of Kurdish people fled to the mountains to escape Saddam's army, only to face death by air attack, starvation, hypothermia, and disease. Television images from the region told a story of unimaginable suffering. An estimated one thousand people died on the mountains each day, the majority being, children, babies and the old.

Across the world shocked groups of men and women came together and established voluntary groups in a bid to provide relief.

The KCF (incorporating the KSC) is one such group.

Why do we have two names?

Essentially this stemmed from the rush to do something to help in a desperate situation.

Essentially this stemmed from the rush to do something to help in a desperate situation. As the group's founders, campaigned and fund-raised in London, the fledgling group established close links with a Kurdish group in Kurdistan that was already active in providing rudimentary relief for children. At the first meeting of representatives from both groups it was agreed they would work together under the title of Kurdistan Save the Children (KSC). We, in the UK, then applied for formal Charity Status and were advised to register instead as the Kurdistan Children's Fund to avoid confusion with the long established Save the Children Fund (UK). We agreed, but unfortunately it was too late to change the name in Kurdistan. This is why we operate under one logo but two separate names.

A Board of Trustees runs KCF/KSC. We also have a management committee and a loyal band of volunteers.

Aims and Objectives

The KCF/KSC was established to provide or assist in the relief of suffering among the Kurdish people, particularly (but not exclusively) to refugees and their dependants who are in conditions of need, hardship or distress.

1. Children: To provide for or assist children living in difficult conditions - particularly street children, working children and orphans.

2. Women: To assist young mothers and widows with children by assisting them with housing, education, health-care and training skills so they can become self-sufficient.

3. General: We are involved in child sponsorship, feeding programmes, education, the distribution of clothing and medicine etc. We also are involved in the construction (and reconstruction) of houses, schools, clinics and orphanages.