HONESTY, PURITY, SOLIDARITY, HUMILITY, are some of the great qualities that define DAHA Bulahi. And although this campaign is not for himself, it is for him that from our project A PULSE FOR LIFE (Un Pulso Por la Vida), we start this new dream that will benefit the Saharawi people in different ways ...
Our project has already made 3 visits to the Refugee Camps in Tinduf (Algeria). We are acupuncturists and we have the dream of sharing a traditional healing tool, so they can take care of their health and improve their quality of life.
Thus, on every trip we create stronger bonds with these brave, resilient, strong, generous and really needed people .
It is essential for us to have the unconditional dedication of Daha, it is him, the final administrator of every penny we raise or material purchased in order to bring health and joy to the families of the Center for War Wounded and Landmine Victims Martyr Sherif (Centro de heridos de Guerra y victimas de Mina Martir Sherif) ....
Do you want to know Daha’s and the center’s story ?
Do you want to know what our dream is and be a part of it?
Daha Bulahi is a member of the ONG ASAVIM (Saharawi Association of Victims of Mines) and responsible for getting international aid to the landmine victims in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria.
So here we narrate his story .... A story that thousands of Sahrawis could explain, because it is the reality they all face since 40 years ago .....
"This artefact was different. Daha had unearthed many others throughout the month and a half of volunteering in the area of ??Tifariti, but this one was different. It came out liquid from inside, he knew he was not sure and soon launch it backwards.
Eventually, his conscience and his memory halted for a few seconds. When he woke up he was standing next to a tree, his hand was bleeding.
"I only know that I threw it away before the explosion. If I haven't done that, the wounds would had reached the rest of my body," says Daha in a conversation with eldiario.es in the Sahara Film Festival (FiSahara).
That day, he lost all the fingers of his right hand. The car broke down on the way and took three days to reach the hospital in Algeria. He lost a lot of blood.
After years of working with mutilated victims by landmines, he had become one of them.
Daha Bulahi is one of the 2,500 people who, according to Action Against Gun Violence Organization, have suffered the attacks of the millions of mines scattered around the world's second largest wall, the Wall of Shame.
After five months of hospitalization, many complications accumulated in his body and in his mind. "At first I didn’t want to relate to people, I was very scared. I thought I could not work any more, I was ashamed. I thought many things that were not really true". Eventually he was offered a job and devoted himself entirely to the fight against bombs hidden in the desert.
Today he works in the Saharawi Association of Victims of Anti-Personnel Mines (ASAVIM).
He is 53 years old, but in his five decades he has lived thought a lot. It reveals his exhausted face. He was born in El Aiúnn. "In Aiúnn, the real one, in the Western Sahara", is quick to clarify, as they do many Sahrawis when they talk about the cities whose name matches the ones located in the refugee camps in the Algerian desert. Those cities that they don’t tread for almost 40 years.
He was 15 when he began to fight with the army of the Polisario against the Moroccan occupation. "I saw many things that I would never have choosen to see," recalls Daha, while trying to forget. "Everything changed radically. My family and I lived in Western Sahara so wealthy but with the arrival of Moroccan it all ended," explains Daha who now lives in Auserd (Tindouf, Algeria) . In Auserd, Auserd not. In the "false Auserd". Waiting for the referendum promised by the UN in 1991.
He is our friend and contact, in which we deeply trust , as it has proved his honesty and willingness to serve ...
And this is the place of our new project ....
Martyr Sheriff Center is about 60 kilometers away from the Aaiun , near Rabuni, the only center for war and landmines wounded in Western Sahara. There live the victims of the wall of shame, 2,700 kilometers long wall that separates the Saharawi territorios, occupied by Morocco and the liberated territory.
Besides being the longest wall in the world, it is also the most mined. Its estimated to be between 7 and 10 million mines, which means that even today there are victims of these artifacts. Since 1975, 2,500 people have been victims of such weapons.
Martyr Cherif Centre was built in November 14, 1978 as a military school in order to train the war wounded who could no longer continue to combat in batlle lines.
Since the ceasefire of 1991 there where no more war wounded, and allowed the civilians to live, move from one place to other through the liberated areas (before military areas) of the country, then began the ... mine incidents. There were many victims among men, women, teens and children.
In 1994 the military school was transformed to the current Martir Cherif Centre for war wounded and landmine victims, a mixed centre in which they reside more than 150 disabled among blind, paralytic, amputees and other diseases, they all live there with their families.
The Centre focuses on offering home appliances (fridge, air conditioning and TV) food, water and reduced medical care.
This is where we had access in this last trip to the camps in December 2015.
Moved by their reality, we start a new complementary therapy and Chinese medicine training project.
We are deeply impresed to see how 4 generations can live one same reality, specially the children who somehow are also "mutilated" like their parents and grandparents, with no options, no possibility beyond this place ... it's as if time had stopped in the desert ...
This project is for them, for the children , we want to build a play area where they can play with their families, where we can bring laughter and joy ....
Next May 2016 ... ..
We return to the camps and to Martyr Cherif !!!!
we will treat the 25 patients of last trip and many more, since in April, when temperatures begin to rise, most of them come back to the centre with their families, we estimate about 150 patients and 50 children ...
What we need and how can you help ?????
1. We need to build a Haima (traditional tent) and buy didactic material and games adapted to their culture (1300 €)
2. We need funds to pay the person who will manage the space
(900 €) / year
3. We need to put three spaces for treatment; for men, women and children (600 €)
4. We need acupuncture material for the health workers that we form on each trip so they can continue the work with the patients (2000 €)
With your help we can !!!! THANK YOU WITH ALL OUR HEART!!!
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