Preemptive Love Journal Vol. 5

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We believe in a love that can change the way things are. A love for all who don’t belong, and all who long for more. For those who look different, love different, pray different. For neighbors, enemies, and ourselves. We believe in going where no one else will go, to love the people we’re afraid to love. To remake our world.

TO END WAR.

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CHAPTER

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Two

Three

PROVISIO N

VOCATION

CONNECTION

LO S T I N T H E MIDDLE José could have never imagined Venezuela’s economic crisis would impact his family this intensely. p10

FEEDING MORE THAN HUNGER For Enrique, tomatoes are a way to feed his friends, bring peace to his father, and take one more step toward his dream. p30

HEALING THE DIVIDE Renée is a Black mom. Michael is a white cop. They’re finding a new way forward. Together. p58

A F R I E N D L Y SMILE, U N D I M M E D B Y WAR On your very worst day, she is there. p20

G E N E R O S I T Y U N LEASHED Hungry and trapped under full military lockdown, they felt utterly abandoned by the world. p24

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER

FACING THE FUTURE Giving refugees a way to work right where they are is more than an investment in jobs or economic growth. It’s an investment in peace. p34

VIOLENCE IS A DISEASE. (THERE’S A CURE.) The tools and knowledge we’ve gained from COVID-19?

We can use them to stop an even bigger pandemic: violence. p64

RESTORING FAMILY FARMING With Syria still at war, being home means more than ever. p38

A GUIDE TO HARD CONVERSATIONS Let the table be a welcoming place and a proving ground for our willingness to sit in tension. p68

BRIDGING THE GAP This pottery business keeps alive an ancient tradition at risk of being lost. p42

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MEET OUR MAKER FRIENDS These are the faces of women and men determined to rise and remake their world. p45

Four SHOP

A FIELD GUIDE TO END WAR

Behind the cover

The national flower of Iraq—the rose— blooming in a bomb casing is a fitting reminder that what we do, why we do it, and for whom, remains firmly rooted in our humble beginnings in Iraq.

Illustration by Tavo Montañez Preemptive Love

A FAMILY LEGACY For one man, the cookie mold is more than an income.

It’s a heritage passed down through generations. p50

IMPACT REPORT See the impact of your love around the world. p94

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE ANYWAY? The world is scary as hell.

We love anyway. But why?

VOL. 5

Preemptive Love

RONAL LABRADOR

G U S T A V O D Í A Z M O N T A Ñ E Z Tavo lives

and works in Aguascalientes, Mexico. He likes to combine traditional drawing with computer processing and fully digital graphics. Tavo has been featured around the world in magazines, museums, universities, and more.

R A F A E L A V I L A You always find

Rafael at the heart of a story unfolding. Having navigated life across borders himself, he now helps asylum seekers and refugees in Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela.

C H A R L E N E W I N F R E D Charlene is a

Director of Relief

photographer and storyteller who believes in the power of images to change lives. She’s lived all over the world, from her native Singapore to Australia and Iraq.

H A N I E L L O P E Z A passionate advo-

JEN MEYERSON,

cate for refugees in Mexico, Haniel English professor ist in his church

and migrants is also an and a guitarworship band.

S A A D I A Q U R E S H I Saadia believes

ILLUSTRATION BY MERCEDES DEBELLARD

Children receive food during a distribution in Iraq.

When we show up fast with relief on the frontlines of conflict, we can stop the spread of war.

“Compassion is having the capacity to embrace another’s pain, embrace another story. It’s having grit and creativity.

It’s cultivating a community that comes alongside and stays for the long run.”

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CONTRIBUTORS

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Ronal isn’t afraid of the hard stories he hears while working with Venezuelans deva­ stated by the country’s economic collapse.

A journalist by trade, he covered hard news stories for seventeen years, through au­ diovisual media, print, and digital newspa­ pers. Now with our Preemptive Love team, he leverages his experience to facilitate programming with deep understanding of underlying issues behind poverty, and doc­ uments the stories of those we serve with a strong mix of experience and compassion.

For Ronal, faith and family are corner­ stones of his life. He’s a teacher and drum­ mer in his church. He also loves to enjoy a sunrise on the beach with his wife.

meaningful friendships can be found in unexpected places. Her work to show neighbors how similar we are, regardless of ethnic or religious differences, led her to Preemptive Love—and to start the very first gathering.

E R I N W I L S O N Through writing and

photography, Erin relentlessly uplifts and promotes others, particularly those who are marginalized and vulnerable.

She is a friend to many, a vegetarian, feminist, podcast host, and peacemaker.

ALSO CONTRIBUTED: Dane Barnett, Tammy Burke, Toni Collier, Jeremy Courtney, Jessica Courtney, Amanda Donnelly, Chelsea Hochstetler, Nathan Holles, Ihsan Ibraheem, Ben Irwin, Kim Mack, Chase Moore, Drew Perlmutter, Wendy Russ, Michel Tannous, Lindsay Tevebaugh, Christian Wetzel, Anna Wozniak VOL. 5

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IT’S

REMAKE

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TIME TO

Jessica Courtney on the balcony of a home you’re rebuilding, just a few blocks away from the blast that destroyed much of Beirut, Lebanon

Preemptive Love

OUR WORLD

The past year has been full of twists and turns that none of us saw coming. For many of us, this has been the first time we couldn’t do what we wanted, when we wanted, and had no control over our future—something the communities we serve around the world have often felt for years. What 2020 has shown us, more than anything, is that the decisions we make for ourselves and our families have profound impacts on our community—and our world. Many of us have had to wake up and acknowledge that everything we thought was true was actually just a story born in halls of power—one that must be reimagined.

The tie that binds all humanity together became clearer just as it was pulled almost to the breaking point, in decisions we made about staying at home, wearing masks, joining protests, and how much to hold back for ourselves or share with others.

In a flurry of cancellations and lost opportunities, we have had to choose each day who we will be, regardless of what the future may hold.

Just as viruses, ecological destruction, and political divisions have led pundits and prophets to forecast the end of humanity, I’ve also seen millionaires, the unemployed, the middle class, prisoners, and children alike raising their hands and proving that our ability to include and care for others will not be destroyed.

For me, this has been the beauty of 2020. So many of you have shared your stories of loss, alongside your decisions to share what you still have with strangers around the world. All of us choosing, even in our pain, to ease someone else’s pain. Together, we are doing it.

As we grow our work at Preemptive Love to meet the changing needs of our world, your decision to stand with us and partner with each other and with global communities makes it all happen. You are pushing back against the ideas that lead to war, and creating space for communities to thrive.

I hope you enjoy this issue of the Preemptive Love Journal. I hope these pages remind you of all that is possible when we choose to be for one another and lift each other up. Food, medicine, jobs, sustainable agriculture all bring healing and restoration. And I hope the stories we share ignite in you the belief that we can heal all that is tearing us apart and remake our world—one person at a time, community by community, in our neighborhoods, at home, and around the world.

Jessica Courtney, Founder & Chief Program Officer VOL. 5

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PROVISION

Join our monthly giving community and provide relief and jobs to end war.

TO ACT FAST IN A CRISIS. JOIN US.

When you give monthly, you ensure lasting relief for war-torn families and asylum seekers.

You create jobs to help refugees lift themselves out of poverty. You invest in the vulnerable, protecting them from being exploited or recruited into violence. You remake our world.

MONTHLY DONORS ENABLE US

CHAPTER

AD FOOD / MEDICINE / SHELTER / WATER

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VOL. 5

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Located along the Guaire River, Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas lies nestled in the Cordillera de la Costa Central mountain range. Flanked by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela contains the wide Orinoco plains, tropical jungles, rocky highlands, and sweeping lowlands.

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Venezuela is one of the only countries not experiencing war or cataclysmic drought to be on the brink of famine.

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Lost in the Middle

José and his kids stand close

Venezuela is more than a government or a statistic. It’s made up of people— fathers and mothers, grandparents and kids. They have worked tirelessly to make a better life for their families trapped in poverty.

together outside their small home in Venezuela. Standing close—it’s a perfect illustration of the way they live. It’s obvious that José cares for his children. What’s hard to see is how difficult it is for him to take care of them.

“I work hard every day, even on weekends.” José is a merchant at a popular market. “This money is enough to buy a little food to feed my children for three days or two.”

They eat a plate of rice together at four in the afternoon. That is their only meal of the day.

“Stretching our food is the most difficult thing for me. My kids eat a lot, and on several occasions I’ve had to stop eating so that they have a full stomach.” José cries as he explains their situation.

This isn’t how José thought life would turn out. He never imagined losing his wife a decade ago, and raising his children alone. He couldn’t have imagined Venezuela’s economic situation growing so dire. And José never could have envisioned himself as he is now: 60 years old, still working seven days a week, little more than skin and bones from eating so little, and barely sleeping because of his worry for his kids.

It’s a lot.

The problems that plague José affect his neighbors too. They

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Power

Most problems of inequality come back to the same core issue: the desire to have power and hold onto it. Venezuela is no different.

It shares a lot in common with so many countries unraveling the long-term consequences of life as a colony.

For Venezuela, it was Spain who took control, imported slaves from Africa, and imposed its will for more than 300 years, using the land for its strategic location.

During the nearly two decades of war it took for Venezuela to win its independence in 1830, between a quarter and a third of the population died. In the 80 years that followed, Venezuela struggled to figure out life as an independent country. There were coups and crises, dictatorships and uprisings.

Violence left its mark on every aspect of life.

The years of uncertainty that came with so much turmoil calmed for a time, with the discovery of massive oil reserves during World War I. Suddenly there were plenty of resources to extract and, with them, a chance to try things a different way, again. Venezuela embraced a socialist form of government—the antithesis of life as a colony, where an outside power Preemptive Love

takes whatever it wants. Instead, the Venezuelan government shared the resources pouring into the country from oil revenues. Social programs provided what the people needed.

Until they didn’t.

Now Venezuela is locked into another battle over power—the current administration refusing to step down, the opposition refusing the status quo, and Venezuelans lost in the middle, trapped in devastating poverty. This war might just kill more Venezuelans than any battle fought with weapons.

Days Without Food

The hunger crisis in northwest Venezuela grew so bad, we had to come up with a new way to measure it. Instead of counting how many meals a day kids here are missing, we have to count how many days they’ve gone without anything at all.

Some 75% of families go hungry here, and parents and grandparents have the agonizing daily task of trying to distract their little ones from the hunger pains.

Many of these families are used to it—it’s been their pattern of life for years. And for many, they’re now experiencing a fresh shame, having lost their jobs due to COVID-19, on top of their ability to feed their families, and the stability they once knew before their country crumbled around them.

They pray to God for help— knowing they have exhausted every plan they had to keep their families going.

One of the groups deeply affected by the disintegration of Venezuela’s economy are those middle-aged and older. They worked their whole lives and saved, so they would be able to

WE DON’T ALWAYS HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE WHAT IS HAPPENING AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT, BUT WE CAN CHANGE THE DAILY REALITY FOR SOME OF VENEZUELA’S MOST VULNERABLE FAMILIES.

retire some day and help their families. In theory, it was a great plan. Except they could not have predicted that their savings would become worthless.

Extreme Inflation

Imagine it’s the end of a long week and you’re weary. You pick up your monthly pay after work but you’re just too tired tonight to buy groceries, so you go straight home.

You sit on the back porch listening to the sounds of the evening (a combination of insects buzzing and your children fighting) and add up expenses in your mind again and again, calculating how to make the money you earned this month stretch as far as possible.

If you are very careful, you

PAGES 10-11: GETTY IMAGES/500PX PLUS; PAGES 12-13: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

often go without electricity and water. Food is extremely difficult to access, so their children grow up malnourished, and will bear the physical consequences of that for the rest of their lives.

“I want to get them out of this misery,” José tells us. “What I most long for is that my children be happy.”

How did it become so difficult for a hard-working man like José to raise a family in Venezuela?

17 can cover your expenses. You’re trying your best, but the cost of rent, food, and electricity keeps going up, even though your pay never does. You have a few bigger expenses, but you’re going to have to continue saving up over a few months for that. You go to bed exhausted, but at least you have a plan: pay the landlord, pay the electric bill, buy groceries.

When you wake up, you discover that the money in your pocket, your pay for a month of hard work, has dropped in value. Again. What would have covered rent, electricity, and a few weeks’ worth of groceries yesterday, now will only buy four eggs.

Just four eggs. Not enough to feed your kids a single meal.

It seems like a dystopian movie script, but it’s not. This hyper­ inflation, and it’s the reason why the situation for our friends in Venezuela is so precarious.

Revenues from oil exports once supported the generous social programs Venezuelans came to rely on. When the global price of oil fell sharply, it had an immediate effect on the country’s financial reserves.

At the same time, the price of imported goods rose. And the government responded by printing more money. This started a cycle that continues to wreak havoc on the economy here.

Venezuela entered a state of hyperinflation in 2016, at 274%.

By comparison, the inflation rate in the United States that year was 1.26%. This means that whatever you wanted to buy in Venezuela in 2016 was valued at 274% more than your money’s power to buy it.

The value of the currency continued to fall, so far in fact that the Venezuelan government created new money in 2018. They wa-

gered that starting over would fix the problem.

That’s a wager they lost.

Between 2016 and April 2019, the overall inflation rate rose to 53,798,500%.

Five million Venezuelans have left the country in hopes of earning a living elsewhere. Despite the fact that Venezuela is one of the only countries in the world

Finding Ourselves in the Stories of Others I sometimes joke that I fall in love for a living—with moms and their families at the nearby refugee camp for Syrians, with men and women who give all of their energy to be able to take care of their families.

With young people at our tech hubs.

And even during the brief encoun­ ters with dis­­placed kids at food dis­ tributions.

If I’m honest, it’s not always easy for me to identify with the folks we serve. I’m a white, English-speaking Canadian. As much as I try to learn

not at war or having experienced a cataclysmic drought, it is heading into famine. It’s nearly impossible to fathom such a drastic change in such a short amount of time.

Life at Abel’s House

Abel’s mom Yessica is devoted to her five children. Devotion hasn’t spared her family from profound hunger, though. She finds her kids

from my friends and neighbors here in Iraq, I will never know what it was like to grow up in a country at war.

Unlike so many of the widows we help get back on their feet in Iraq, whose husbands were killed in the fight against ISIS, I never married, and will never know what it feels like to lose a spouse.

Unlike our friends who work from their tiny homes in refugee camps in order to provide food for their kids, I don’t have children. I don’t know what it does to your heart to hear the child you breastfed as a baby now cry from hun­ ger every night.

I love these folks we work with. But I have no idea what it is to be them.

And then one day

an update came through from our team in Venezuela.

I began sorting through photos, making decisions about which to use for upcoming blog posts, and which might work for social media. And then I stopped scrolling. A few photos of women filled my computer screen (see photo on p. 8). In each one, they were receiving heavy sacks of food.

The monthly food packs we’re dis­tributing are too heavy for anyone to carry all at once.

These women, they look like me.

They have grey hair like me. One of them has a belly like me. In these photos, they have tears streaming down their faces.

They are so grateful for this food.

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fishing expired, half-eaten food from the fetid drainage ditch that runs outside their home.

“I’ve had to yell at them, because I’ve seen them find containers in the dirty water. I’ve told them it will make them sick. They tell me that they don’t care, because they’re hungry.”

“I work selling used car parts,” Ángel, Abel’s dad, says. “But with

COVID-19, there are no people on the street, and I sell almost nothing. I try to bring [some food] to my house, but it’s barely enough for one meal.”

This family eats once a day in good times, and has gone as much as three days without food when things are bad.

“We have become used to eating in the afternoon,” Yessica tells

us. “I prepare rice for everyone and stir it with pork intestines.

My children hold out until night, but the youngest ones cry when they get up, because they want something.”

The effects are most obvious in little Abel, despite his parents’ best efforts. His belly is bloated due to the lack of protein. “Abel’s first words were ‘Mom, give me bread.’

I was shocked that this was the first thing he learned.”

Hunger is often measured by how many meals a day someone is forced to miss. In Vene­ zuela, they measure hunger by how many days you go without eating— three, in the case of many here.

What Is Our Role?

worked hard their whole lives to provide for their families, and now, through no fault of their own, they have no idea how they’ll get through.

Decades of hard work and saving disappeared overnight, as the value of their money crashed.

The fear of finding myself old and unable to take care of myself? I know this fear.

Maybe you know what that’s like.

Maybe before COVID-19 torched the economy and put so many people out of work, maybe your life looked a lot different than it does now. Maybe, like many of our Venezuelan friends, you always thought that if you worked hard enough, you would be able to take Preemptive Love

care of yours­elf and your family.

Until something like a pandemic came and upended everything. Until something like war came. Until something like violence came and took everything you worked for that gave you some security. Some­ times, despite your best efforts, life doesn’t turn out like you’d planned… and you can’t make it on your own.

For many of us, there is enough going on in our own families and communities that we can hardly bear to take in the news—sometimes it’s just too much, and we want to shut it all out.

But what if our imaginations—our ability to empa­ thize—are our superpowers?

What if our ability

to see ourselves in the stories of others gives us the clues we need to move forward?

What if I imagine myself in the place of Venezuelan women, with grey hair like me, who never imagined themselves in need like this? I donate to Preemptive Love’s relief work, absolutely. I want these women to be cared for, and to know they aren’t alone. But I’m also left wondering… who am I missing in my own neighbor­ hood? Who in my own community is hungry, lonely, tired?

Those questions, and having the grit to stay open, can lead the way forward.

—Erin Wilson

This is a loaded question.

The international community, including the United States, has imposed a series of sanctions, intended to force the current government to step down. These sanctions—economic punishments on Venezuela, as well as any country that trades with Venezuela—play a role in increasing the inflation rate.

More importantly though, they have directly led to the suffering of millions of people.

As recently as July 2020, the government of Venezuela petitioned for some of their gold reserves stored with the Bank of England to be released. Access to these reserves would have been problematic in the long term, but could have alleviated suffering in the short term. In a move that is hard not to read as colonialist, the UK government denied Venezuela’s request.

Venezuela is a country slowly being starved into submission.

We know Venezuela is more than its government, and is far from a monolith. Venezuela is made up of people—like José and his daughters who could pass for twins, like the old women who wept when we showed up at their doors, and like Abel, who is too

young to understand why he is always so hungry.

We don’t always have the power to change what is happening at the highest levels of government, but we can change the daily reality for Venezuela’s most vulnerable families.

ABEL’S FIRST WORDS WERE “MOM, GIVE ME BREAD.”

And we are.

We’re showing up to their homes and listening.

We’re sitting with them in their sorrow, learning about their most acute needs.

And we’re returning with food.

We’re delivering bags filled with everything a Venezuelan family needs to make meals for about a month—items such as eggs, margarine, meat and chicken, oil, sugar, pasta and rice, powdered milk, and coffee. We work to meet the needs of severely malnourished families, looking at protein, fat, and vitamin requirements and shifting food pack contents to accommodate changing nutritional needs, accessibility, and culture.

We include both the foods families like to eat, and foods specifically chosen to help malnourished kids recover safely.

But these distributions are unlike any other we’ve done.

Because gasoline is so expensive, and nearly impossible to find, our team is delivering much of the food on foot. They’re carrying parcels on their backs and pushing hand carts during the very narrow windows of time allowed during COVID curfews, and traveling in small teams to avoid drawing the attention of those who might steal. That’s how committed they are to getting nourishing food into the hands of those who need it most.

Food alone won’t solve people’s problems in Venezuela. So we’re planning ways for these families to sustain themselves. Just as we’ve done in Iraq and Mexico, we’re listening closely, looking for local solutions to help families climb out of a situation none of them asked for.

We believe in the worth of our friends in Venezuela. And we’re standing with them.

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FINDING FOOD FOR YOUR FAMILY CAN BE HARD ENOUGH IN SYRIA , AND SOMETIMES FAMILIES HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN FOOD AND HEALTHCARE. BECAUSE OF THIS CLINIC, FAMILIES LIKE FATIMA’S NO LONGER HAVE TO MAKE THAT CHOICE.

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On one of your worst days ever, sick and scared, Fatima greets you in the clinic with a bright smile.

She confirms which doctor you’re here to see and the details in your patient file, and offers you a seat while you wait. You can finally exhale, some of your stress slipping away as you do so. Fatima, a data entry specialist at this medical clinic in your neighborhood, has reassured you that as bad as you feel, you’re not alone. ¶ When you live in the bombed-out suburbs of Damascus, Syria, life is hard. Let’s face it, only the most determined and the most desperate can live in a city that’s still a shadow of its former self. It’s tough to get enough electricity, nearly impossible to find a job, and with the tumbling value of the currency and steep rise of inflation, putting food on the table is an increasingly difficult task. And finding healthcare Preemptive Love

for your family… that’s hard too. Some­times it’s so expensive, you have to choose between medicine and food.

Fatima gets it. It’s one reason why she’s so good at her job.

Her father died when she was young, so she grew up very poor, like so many of the patients who come to the clinic. Fatima is also in the unique position of knowing the clinic inside out. Not only is she on staff, but as a new mom to little Bouchra, she’s also been a patient here. She got prenatal care at this very clinic, ultrasounds and check-ups. And now her healthy baby often comes along with her when she comes in to work.

The hospital that used to serve this community was destroyed by war. When the clinic first opened

THE CLINIC NOT ONLY TAKES THE PULSE OF PATIENTS, BUT ALSO THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD.

in August 2018, it provided the only healthcare in the community.

The clinic remains an essential place to receive great medical care that is free, safe for patients, and reliable. When so much is uncertain, the 200,000 people who have access to this clinic know that issues like infections, chronic illnesses, and pregnancies don’t have to lead to life-threatening conditions.

The clinic not only takes the pulse of patients, but also the whole neighborhood. Clinic staff know exactly what the most pressing needs are at any one time because of their patients. Staff see patterns emerge, because of the sheer number of people that are treated daily—they managed more than 14,000 consultations in the first half of the year alone! Food insecurity, water restrictions, and dangerous play spaces for kids all show up through their diagnoses. And these patterns help us determine the community’s greatest needs, and inform the ways we respond.

Chronic food insecurity and a lack of jobs are some of the community symptoms being diagnosed—and the next ones to be treated—by starting small, locally-owned businesses, right here in the neighborhood where our patients live. These businesses will provide income for families, stability for the wider community, and tangible encouragement for this corner of the world.

As for Fatima, she loves the role she plays in the clinic. She loves interacting with the people.

She appreciates her team and their spirit, the way they’re always caring for and supporting each other. This kind of care—beyond what can be done with a stethoscope—brings healing that is just as vital as medicine.

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In a town where more than half the population lives below the poverty line, having access to food is paramount.

What we didn’t expect? It stirred something in the hearts of the young Iraqis, who volunteered and never wanted to stop.

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“ S ome of these families haven’t eaten for days,” our friend Ghassan explained. “This town suffered poverty long before the coronavirus.”

Widows. Orphans. Grandparents. Ghassan’s neighbors, friends. They were quarantined in their homes by the military because of COVID-19.

They were going without food, with no way to buy more and no idea when they might eat next.

They felt utterly abandoned by the world.

These friends live in the most impoverished city in Iraq. More than half the town lives below the poverty line. And that number is growing.

“This is the largest food distribution this city has seen,” Ghassan said.

He lives nearby, and he’s worked to make life better for people here for over a decade. He knows their growing needs first-hand.

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and infrastructure were already reeling from decades of war and sanctions, even before COVID­-19 began its destructive spread through the country.

The United Nations projects that another one in ten Iraqis will be pushed below the poverty line by the pandemic, and that child poverty will double.

Poverty isn’t just about not having enough food—it’s all encompassing.

It can trap whole generations in a vicious cycle. Not being able to afford food, healthcare, or school for children deprives the next generation of the tools they need to lift themselves out of the trap their parents are in.

And that locks the door to a better future for the generation after. If entire communities are poor, then friends, families, and neighbors cannot help RAQ’S ECONOMY, HEALTHCARE,

Preemptive Love

each other. And the cycle of pov­ erty continues.

A heartbreaking number of families in Iraq live day-to-day at the best of times, including many in this town. Those here who are able to work, mostly work in agriculture.

They tend other people’s fields, and take care of other people’s livestock.

They get paid a little each day for their effort, just enough to feed their family that day—if times are good. They never get the chance to save or stock up for hard times. If they can’t work, they can’t eat.

So when a pandemic triggers a military lockdown, families go hungry. An already alarming situation grows even worse.

In a community where food is scarce even at the best of times, it didn’t take long to push hundreds of families to the edge of starvation.

“ THESE YOUNG VOLUNTEERS KEPT GOING AND CONTINUED CARING FOR THEIR NEIGHBORS— ON THEIR OWN.

first and the fastest,” Ghassan tells us. “You’re the only ones yet to bring aid here.” He wasn’t paying us a compliment—he was stating a fact.

A few days after the call for help, food was purchased, packed, and delivered. All of it had to be done very differently than a normal food distribution—gloves, masks, and plenty of social distancing to protect both families and volunteers from the spread of COVID-19.

Ghassan led the charge, spending long days and nights making sure people in the most remote areas got food.

The distributing team was made entirely of volunteers, most of them young men who lived in the community. Most were YOU WERE THE

students who couldn’t go to school because of the pandemic. And many had never done volunteer work like this before.

But what made this distribution unlike any other was what happened next.

These new friends? These young volunteers? They didn’t want to stop.

They started raising money on their own and bought and packaged even more food. They kept going house-to-house.

They continued caring for their neighbors—on their own.

One food distribution did more than feed 7,300 hungry people. It stirred something in the hearts of these young Iraqis. It inspired them to keep giving, keep pressing in—and to keep remaking their world.

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VOCATION

Make a lasting investment to disrupt violence.

YOU CAN STOP THE SPREAD OF WAR.

Whether you remember us in your will, use a DAF (donor-advised fund), or give monthly — you ensure our lifesaving work continues for years to come, helping mend the wounds of war, and stopping the next war before it starts.

NO MATTER HOW YOU GIVE,

AD DIGITAL WORK / AGRICULTURE / SMALL BUSINESS / MAKERS

Refugees

PreemptiveLove.org/Give

I N F O R M A T I O N A L M O M E N T l a n g u a g e , p h r a s e , s o m e t h i n g i nteresting

CHAPTER

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partner new jobs

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them

learn

Because the

more

risk

of

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new when

victims. have

flourish.

skills people

violence

and have fades.

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FEEDING

MORE

FOR ENRIQUE, TOMATOES ARE A WAY TO FEED HIS FRIENDS, BRING PEACE

THAN

HUNGER

TO HIS FATHER, AND TAKE ONE MORE STEP TOWARD HIS DREAM.

P

HO

TO GRAPH

BY PAOLA+ MURRAY

ST

Y

YLING

BY MAGGIE RUGGIERO

Preemptive Love

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33 Enrique loves to work in the greenhouse on the rooftop of the shelter where he lives in Mexico.

Here he spends time drinking coffee, pruning the tomatoes, tending seedlings, and patiently coaxing a harvest.

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like anything special. But this tomato soup is different. Enrique made it using home-grown tomatoes.

He shared it with his friends and family.

Maybe that still doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary.

But Enrique is an asylum seeker. Just 18 years old, he’s traveled hundreds of miles through dangerous areas. He’s lived for years in a state of upheaval, stress, and instability.

Enrique grew these tomatoes in a greenhouse on the rooftop of OMATO SOUP DOESN’T SEEM

the migrant shelter where he lives in Mexico. He spent hours among the plants, carefully pruning and tending to them.

And those he shared the soup with, they are fellow asylum seekers and migrants, friends waiting in Mexico, unsure of their next steps, trapped between an uncertain future and a past too terrible to bear.

Enrique came to this shelter with his father. They’re from Guatemala and they, like thousands of others, were driven out by increasing violence back home.

Most people in this shelter are from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador—also known as the Northern Triangle. It is the most violent region in the world not actively at war. Years of instability, corruption, and extensive, sophisticated criminal networks driven by the drug trade have left this area reeling. And the upheaval from COVID-19 has only increased poverty and violence, as gangs and drug cartels all over Latin America use the chaos of the pandemic to strengthen their grip on communities.

TO ENRIQUE, TENDING TOMATO PLANTS DAILY IS THE WORK OF MANY FUTURES.

Enrique’s father helped build the greenhouse on the migrant shelter rooftop. And Enrique is part of the team that regularly looks after the growing crop. Enrique’s father grew food in Guatemala, too, and he’s proud of his son’s dedication to these tender plants. He intimately understands the labor, challenge, and reward that comes with growing living things.

To Enrique, tending tomato plants daily is the work of many futures: feeding his fellow asylum seekers at the shelter, peace for himself and his father, and another step to his ultimate dream— becoming a veterinarian.

For now, he’s found some hope in the rooftop greenhouse. Soil to work with his hands, an income he can earn, tomatoes to transform into soup to share with friends.

A start at a life remade.

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FAC I N G

Bombs were still dropping as we pressed into Mosul, as the war raged to liberate the city from ISIS. We dodged snipers to reach hungry residents desperate for food. Our cars were nearly swallowed whole by airstrike craters in the middle of the main roads, and during rainstorms we had to dodge little boys who stripped down to their underwear to swim in those craters-turned-pools. Hardly seems like the ideal place to start a tech hub.

Except it’s perfect.

THE FUTURE Preemptive Love

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a med school graduate who was displaced to Mosul during the war. For Ali and those who live in countries picked apart at the seams by war, jobs are a key component to a more whole, peaceful future.

Everyone longs for the ability to work, to provide for themselves and their family, and to have agency over their life. In Mosul, and cities across the country, Iraqi and Syrian families impacted by war have launched their own businesses through one-toone coaching and startup funds. But without a keen vision for the future, our work would fall short.

We launched our first tech hubs in Iraq as a means to provide technical training, professional development, and one-to-one coaching for Syrian refugees, Iraqis displaced inside their own country, and vulnerable members of the local community. Our goal is ambitious: to revolutionize the way refugees work.

Iraq is an interesting place to launch such a future-facing project. In some ways the country is a product of decades lost to war.

Most private businesses and some government offices still rely on paper T’S PERFECT FOR ALI,

ledgers for their business accounts.

And yet its overwhelmingly young population—60% of the population is under the age of 25—is just as connected to cell phones, apps, and online gaming as young people are anywhere.

Iraq’s younger generation is part of a wave of nonlinear growth that has the potential to remake the country. While their parents’ generation is catching up with basic technology, they are leapfrogging ahead. One of the ways they’re doing that is through microwork and machine learning.

Over time, the skills and knowledge workers pick up doing micro­ work can be leveraged into new job opportunities. Microwork is a bridge, allowing workers to gain experience and income, while propelling them forward in the digital workplace.

What is microwork?

You probably do microwork for free and don’t even realize it. If you’ve ever made a purchase online or filled out a form, and needed to highlight pictures of cars or street lights in a grid to prove you aren’t a robot, you were performing microwork. You were

“I HAVE LEARNED THAT NOTHING CAN STOP US FROM HELPING PEOPLE AND IMPROVING OURSELVES.” —T EC H H U B T E A M M E M B E R

Preemptive Love

teaching a computer what shapes in a photo could be parts of a car or a street light. Given enough shoppers or form-fillers entering answers, the computer system will be able to do the task on its own eventually.

It’s made possible through paid partnerships between online retailers and companies collecting data.

It’s easy to think that computers and machines can do everything.

But that’s not yet the case. Micro­ work takes large, judgment-rich projects, breaks them down into the smallest possible parts, and distributes those tasks to a wide number of people.

Teaching machines the shapes of cars is a pretty simple task.

But imagine a more complex project, like the one taken on recently by microworkers trained at our tech hubs: poring over photos of dumped medical waste, and picking out the shapes of individual items in the trash, like syringes or face masks. Well-annotated photos can help medical systems improve recycling programs, saving millions of dollars. What seems like a random task is actually the backbone of big business. And it can be performed anywhere there is an internet connection.

Tech hub participants who study microwork and data analysis become part of the first machinelearning workforce in Iraq. They get an introduction to data entry, collection, analysis, and handson training, along with the option to participate in income-generating projects with international clients.

They gain a voice and an opportunity to engage in dialogue with local and international businesses.

Our tech hubs facilitate online access and job-specific training— and crucially, act as a payment gateway to ensure workers can get

13

TIMES THEIR PREVIOUS INCOME In 2019 alumni earned 13x their previous income 6 months after entering our tech hubs.

paid, even without access to the global financial system. Once they complete their training, alumni continue to receive microwork opportunities through our tech hubs, allowing graduates to continue generating income.

Opportunities for the most vulnerable

The idea of microwork fits perfectly with Iraqi culture—it is well suited to a highly specialized workforce.

When your car breaks down here, for example, you don’t take your car to a general mechanic. That job doesn’t exist. Instead you take your car to the appropriate specialist, perhaps someone who repairs engines, or transmissions.

So the process of mastering a particular digital skill set, continuously improving accuracy and speed to maximize profit? That fits in perfectly with the existing work culture.

App-based microwork differs from other tech work by its flexibility. Because our microwork tasks can be performed anywhere there is an internet connection, by anyone with a smartphone, it opens up the possibility of paid work to many who have been excluded from the workforce.

Moms can annotate photos while their children nap. Folks with mobility issues can work from home without the complications of getting to an office. And those who are displaced by war, or are able to return home after years of displacement, don’t have to give up their income! They take their work with them, wherever they land.

In the first two years since launching our tech hubs, our microworkers have generated $56,608 in personal income over 15 projects for private sector clients interested in computer vision. In the first few months of 2020, our microworkers earned $11,318. And soon, they will have the chance to boost their earnings even more. An average wage for entry-level work in Iraq is $400 a month. But the current financial crisis has meant that many workers in this part of the country have gone without an income since February.

“The good thing about microwork, which I love, is that I can have other work as a second job.”

It’s important for Ali, a tech hub graduate trying to build a life for himself in Mosul, to be able to say yes to work opportunities that come his way. He and his family lost everything in the war with ISIS. With microwork, he can work remotely, even during COVID-19. “I feel that… I am playing games while working.”

A new way to work

Up until now, our microworkers have been relying on platforms created by others. But soon, we will be giving microworkers the next level of autonomy by creating our own platform.

WorkWell—our digital assembly line and remote work portal— is currently in the final stages of testing, and is projected to bring 2,000 consistent, online job opportunities to Iraq by January 2021. This platform will allow participants to work from anywhere using their smartphone and an internet connection. If there was ever a doubt about the need for this kind of flexible way to earn an income, the recent pandemic has proved the necessity of remote work options like this.

“For me, microwork is a good opportunity for a place like Mosul,” Ali explained. Years after Mosul was freed from ISIS control, there is still a struggle to repair basic municipal infrastructure—like roads, bridges, reliable electricity and water. These services need to be in place before the private sector can bounce back in any substantial way. But Ali and his generation, they can’t wait the decades it might take. They need—and deserve—jobs now.

“There are no good chances to have a job, even in the private sector, due to the situation of Mosul and of COVID-19. So for me, it’s a good opportunity to work with international companies, to improve my English and IT skills, and to get money at the same time.”

Investment in tech, in coaching Iraqi and Syrian young people, and in developing platforms like WorkWell, pave a way forward despite the impact of war.

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RESTORING FA M I L Y FA R M I N G

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land, surrounded by her crop of cotton, the hot sun bright on her face.

She is holding a ball of brilliant white fluff in both hands, the product of a successful season sowing and tending to her crop.

Maryam is at home in these fields. This is the work she has known for all of her seventy years. And after being displaced by the war still raging in Syria, roaming from place to place until finding some form of safety, being home means more than ever.

When we think of the damage caused by war, it’s often images of cities that come to mind—tall concrete structures with their facades blown off, rusted rebar exposed and poking into the air. But countries like Syria contain large swaths of urban countryside dedicated to agriculture. The effect of war on these regions may look different, but is no less devastating. In fact, the damage is often more calculated.

Farmers like Maryam found that their homes were ARYAM STANDS ON HER

destroyed, along with the irrigation ditches that watered the fields. Their farm equipment and livestock stolen, their lands burned. Every element that makes up a farm, targeted and destroyed in some way.

Even more devastating, Maryam and her five children were separated and scattered. Her children had to work unstable, low-paying jobs on other people’s farms. When it was finally safe enough to return to their own land, they couldn’t. They just didn’t have the resources to go home.

This is the tragic gap many victims of war face.

Maryam had decades of know-how and experience farming. She had land ready to be farmed, and many hands eager to work the land. What she lacked was the capital to start again.

For Maryam and 150 farmers in eastern Syria, we closed that gap.

We worked in seven villages, choosing farmers who were especially vulnerable. Some had very large VOL. 5

families to care for. Some were raising children with physical or cognitive issues. And some, like Maryam’s, were families headed by widows.

Together with our Syrian friends, we pooled our resources.

We provided the materials they needed to get their first crops in the ground. Tractors and combines were shared between villages.

Generators pumped water from the Euphrates River into irrigation ditches. We provided the tools, fertilizer, and seeds to bring their farms to life again. And we got Preemptive Love

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them up to speed on new diseases and prevention methods that emerged in the seven years their farms laid fallow.

Farming families provided their expertise and hard work. They know the microclimates for their land, and know precisely the best time to plant the traditional crops they know they can sell for a profit: cotton, wheat, barley, and a variety of vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, and zucchini. They know how to spot pests in their crops, and how to treat them. And they know the value of

community—families help bring in the harvest on each other’s farms, when getting a crop in at the right time can mean the difference between having a crop to sell or not.

“Everything is going much better now,” Maryam confirmed.

“This project has brought back light into the darkness we lived in, and hope has returned to our lives.”

The farming families we partnered with have had the chance to plant and harvest a few different crops now. It’s fair to say that farmers in Syria still face

PREVIOUS SPREAD, BACKGROUND IMAGE: GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES

40 tremendous challenges. The country is still at war, and Maryam’s region in the east continues to see violence. The region is bisected by opposing forces with a frontline that roughly follows the Euphrates River (a primary water source for agriculture)—forces loyal to the government to the west, Kurdish forces to the east, and pockets of ISIS-held territory to the southwest.

In addition, there is the complicating factor of the plummeting value of the local currency. After a long season of growing, then harvesting crops, farmers have no trouble selling their crops—but the money they receive for their efforts is worth less and less every day.

But the families agree it’s better to be back on their land than remain displaced.

Maryam and her children were able to return to their land, live all together again, and put their energies into rebuilding their own farm that can benefit their family for generations. They’re able grow food to feed themselves now and preserve for later—providing themselves a little cushion as the economy drops.

The family is bonded by their love for their village and neighbors. Maryam talks about how much she enjoys sitting with her neighbors every morning to chat and drink coffee. And it’s the same with her children, who take breaks from farm labor to visit with neighbors, swapping news about their village and each upcoming harvest.

There is still so much to do to restore farms and the lives of farming families in Syria, but in this group of villages, they’re on their way.

Planting Solutions Violence. Bomb­ ings. Lives and communities destroyed. We know the visible scars of war—the ones that mark our psyches and cities.

We think we know what causes war: personal battles that become polit­ ical, and eventually spill over borders of all kinds.

What we don’t think about nearly enough are the wider pressures that can lead to war—the seemingly disconnected, un­ related pieces that suddenly trigger mass unrest and violence.

Rising temp­ eratures. Water shortages. Grass­ lands turned to desert. Farmland shrinking.

These real changes affect more than just the climate. They affect where people are able to live, and how they share resources and provide for themselves. They impact people’s ability to stay and farm their tradition­ al lands.

Changes in climate—like rising temperatures and receding farm­ land in Syria and Iraq—impact the earth. But they also impact the people

who live here, which can lead to conflict between neighbors.

Those who live downstream from a dam, for example, often lose their traditional way of life and livelihoods, along with their water supply.

Those who tend sheep in marginal grasslands, over­ grazed and turned into desert, often find themselves in conflict with neighbors for precious, dwindling areas of grassland.

And those who have to leave their land and find new work often find themselves in over­ crowded cities with too little resources and opportunity already.

Trying to ensure your community has what it needs to survive—that’s enough to turn conflicts over disappearing re­ sources into all-out war.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We exist to end war. And for this vision to have a chance at becoming reality, we have to look at the climate-caused problems that lead to war.

There is no onesize-fits-all solution to these problems.

Instead, we invest in a range of hyperlocal solutions, like co-ops and com­ munity gardens for those who no

longer own land or tools because of war. We work with displaced farmers and shepherds, helping them return to their lands where possible. Where land is scarce or it’s too danger­ ous to return, we look to rooftop greenhouses and in-home mush­ room farming—so families have what they need, right where they are.

And in every case, we prioritize those who are vulnerable and most likely to be affected by vio­ lence and recruited into it.

We’re already doing this in Mexico, Syria, and Iraq. But this is only the beginning.

We’re seeking out local experts so we can devise new land management models and reclaim grasslands from the desert. We’re looking for families we can partner with to start gar­ dens, helping them grow the food they need right at home.

We’re dreaming up closed-loop ecosystems.

Before violence can even start, we’re planting the solutions to end war.

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Preemptive Love

THIS POTTERY BUSINESS KEEPS ALIVE AN ANCIENT TRADITION AT RISK OF BEING LOST.

BRIDGING THE GAP

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drinking water cool even on hot summer days. These are still used in villages with limited electricity and also by urban families.

This pottery business keeps alive an ancient tradition at risk of being lost. The business is a form of resistance against violence.

For communities still struggling with the ongoing impact of ISIS, it’s a tangible message that hate will not win.

This pottery business also supports a family who is part of a small religious minority: the Kaka’i. The Kaka’i are an ancient people, but their faith seems revo­lutionary in the current culture.

They structure their lives around ideas that bring people together, like equality, righteousness, and oneness—and reject concepts which, by their very nature, divide, like class, caste, and rank. These beliefs cause them to be targets of ISIS and put their very existence at risk.

People targeted by ISIS are people we love to stand beside.

Safeer’s business, located on a main highway, is incredibly public.

And yet Safeer and his family felt invisible. “You saw us,” he said. “You cared about us.” That a stranger would reach out to him, would care about his welfare, his business, his history, his story… suddenly they’re not so invisible.

We’re working with Safeer to get samples made for candle vessels.

We’re experimenting with different shapes and sizes. And at the end of the process, we’ll have unique products to offer, made in Iraq.

But more than that, we’re bridging a gap until life stabilizes.

We’re standing alongside a skilled artist who thought no one cared, resisting violence, together.

MEET OUR I

listen more, and gently ask about talents they have but don’t see as anything special. For those with handcraft skills, we help them leverage that talent into paid work.

In Safeer’s case though, we didn’t have to search for his skills.

He’s an artist. A potter whose whole family has been involved in the craft for generations. Located on the main road to Baghdad, his shop was known by the hundreds of thousands of travelers who pass by every year. His business survived Iraq’s loss of its last king, and transition to a more modern form of government. It survived Sadaam Hussein’s regime, the invasion by the US and coalition forces, and years of war. It survived ISIS, which caused that main road to be closed for long stretches of time because of the constant ambushes and nighttime attacks, which also made it hard to go to the nearby village to dig for clay. It even survived the passing of Safeer’s father, a master potter, in the shop where he spent so much of his life.

But Safeer’s family business faced an enemy it couldn’t battle: COVID-19. Because of local curfews put into place to stop the spread of the virus, in addition to the corresponding financial slump in the economy, traffic on this highway stopped. Fewer people passed by the shop. There was no shipping of goods to southern cities to sell.

Safeer’s family are some of the few remaining potters left in the country who make traditional vessels. They’ve created everything from fine art sculptures (his favorite) to outdoor garden curbs.

But one of their most consistent sellers are the traditional water vessels, called “ ” (pronounced “hibb”), that naturally keep

US

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“

I DIDN’T REALIZE people still care…” Safeer told us.

You probably know someone who lost their job because of COVID-19. Or maybe it was you. Around the world, businesses have closed as families stayed home trying to get ahead of the pandemic.

Safeer was emotional about having to close his business—a trade passed down in his family for hundreds of years. It represents so much more than just a pottery shop. When we heard about his situation from a local news channel, we reached out to Safeer and discovered that it might just be too soon for him to close that door. When we identify makers to set up with a new business, it always comes out of a process of listening. We sit with refugee and displaced friends, we talk through the skills, knowledge, and experience they already have. We

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MAKER FRIENDS WE SEE PARTNERS, NOT VICTIMS. WE SEE POSSIBILITY AND CAPABILITY IN EVERY PERSON WE MEET, NO MATTER THEIR CIRCUMSTANCE. FROM DIGITAL WORKERS TO BUSINESS OWNERS, SOAP MAKERS AND SEAMSTRESSES, BAKERS AND FASHION DESIGNERS—THESE ARE THE FACES OF MEN AND WOMEN DETERMINED TO RISE AND REMAKE OUR WORLD.

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HALA

hubs to learn critical IT skills because they want to work in tech. They love the beauty of code and the elegance of good web design. ¶ Some join because they know that tech and other skills offered in the program are essential tools for building other kinds of dreams. ¶ Hala has long had a love for fashion, perhaps an unexpected career choice in a country like Iraq. But she has a keen eye for pattern and color, and she enjoys showing that dressing modestly in keeping with her faith can be both beautiful and elegant. ¶ Hala began making jewelry to compliment outfit combinations she assembled. She put her newly learned tech skills to use right away, designing her own packaging for her jewelry, creating advertising, and developing a marketing strategy to sell her creations through social media—a sure-fire way to get products known in Iraq. ¶ Hala has discovered that she doesn’t have to choose between two disparate paths. She can work in tech and fashion. And she can make a life she enjoys.

NALIN

Preemptive Love

kind and an amazing friend, but she also bakes the most delicious cookies. When we met Nalin, her family needed more income to cover their basic daily expenses. But it wasn’t practical for Nalin to leave the Syrian refugee camp to find work—even before the whole community was confined to the camp by the arrival of COVID-19.

Nalin needed work she could do from home—and she had the skills to make that possible.

When we checked in with Nalin several months after she started her baking business, we asked her a few questions to learn how it was going.

Do you feel that this program has added to your family’s future security? Yes. Are you confident where your next meal will come from? Yes. Does your business help you feel independent? Absolutely.

Do you have confidence in your ability to own your own business?

Absolutely.

Nalin’s business provides more than income for her and her family.

It provides fresh confidence.

NOT ONLY IS NALIN

SAEED

Some join our tech

business gives you a kind of freedom that can change your life—especially if you’ve been displaced by war.

Saeed, his family, and their entire community fled north when the war with ISIS in Iraq made it impossible to stay home. Overnight they went from owning acreage and grazing livestock, to living in blue and white tents on tiny blocks of land.

OWNING YOUR OWN

When you’ve lost everything, and you’re displaced with thousands of others competing for a handful of low-wage jobs, how do you function?

We helped Saeed and his wife set up an electrical shop in the refugee camp. They stocked all the little bits a home needs to function, which saved their neighbors a costly or tiring walk to town. Saeed and his wife

sold out of their inventory, restocked the shelves many times over, and were able to put away some money for something they weren’t sure was ever possible.

They moved home—and took their shop with them.

Saeed’s shop gave his family the chance to live without debt while displaced, and provided the funds to start life again.

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to make a candle—melt wax, pour it into a vessel. Truth is, it takes care and attention. You have to keep a close eye on wax quality and melt temperatures. You must skillfully center and trim the wick, then level and finish the final candle.

Silva makes candles so she can create a beautiful, inviting environment for others. And in doing so, she earns the money she needs to provide well for her family, to create a beautiful environment for them, too.

When Silva fled war in Syria and found herself in a refugee camp in Iraq, she had safety, yes.

But long rows of tents on dusty, makeshift roads was hardly the environment she’d imagined for raising her two children. She wanted them to feel safe and cared for. And she works hard every day to make that happen. Silva says yes to every business opportunity that comes her way—including making beautiful candles. This allows her to buy nutritious food for her children, fix up their home in the camp a little at a time, and create an atmosphere that makes up for some of their loss.

IT LOOKS SIMPLE ENOUGH

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BAYAN for her sewing skills. In fact, her skills are in such demand that since opening her business, Bayan has steadily increased her customer base for custom-made clothes— and her daily earnings. Not only that, she recently won a contract in the refugee camp where she lives to sew face masks, to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Making masks is a passion project for Bayan. The contract doesn’t pay very much, but for her, it’s a way give back to her community.

Behind Bayan’s wide smile is a lot of pain. Bayan is Yazidi.

She and her family were forced to flee their home in 2014 to avoid being slaughtered by ISIS. Not only does she carry the emotional trauma of war, but her body carries trauma, too. Bayan has lived with a form of leukemia for a decade.

Before opening her business, she struggled to pay for the medical care she needs to stay alive. Now, thanks to her hard work and a thriving business, she can cover her expenses and plan for the future.

BAYAN IS WELL KNOWN

REZAN

young to lose hope in life, but that’s exactly where he found himself. In Iraq, it’s tough to land anything more than a minimum-wage job without a university degree.

Rezan saw nothing but a future of closed doors.

Rezan has ambition, though.

He joined one of our tech hubs and studied IT, then web design.

He was a natural, and quickly filled the gaps in his knowledge.

He then joined the freelancing course, where he learned the kinds of practical skills that could show off his talents to potential clients and HR managers. In Iraq, good connections are your best chance at getting hired. Rezan didn’t have those kinds of connections. He had to rely purely on his talent, tech skills, and the practice he invested in responding in interviews.

His hard work paid off. When he found himself in competition for a job against those with degrees in design and marketing, Rezan’s talent impressed. He earned a spot as social media manager at a large, local company, and uses the skills he picked up at our tech hub every day.

REZAN WAS FAR TOO

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“Keep smiling. Life is beautiful.” Bayan

SILVA

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A FAMILY LEGACY

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BY PAOLA+ MURRAY

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MEXICAN REGANADA COOKIES

BY MAGGIE RUGGIERO

When we share food and drink with each other, what we often end up sharing are our stories.

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“ This is the wood that Noah made his ark with,” veneration, running his broad fingers over the slab of deep red, unfinished wood, its heady scent lingering in the air.

Rathwan is a carpenter, descended from a long line of carpenters.

Centuries ago, Rathwan’s ancestors migrated to the north of modern-day Iraq, from the mountains of what is now Iran. He started helping out in his father and grandfather’s workshop at the tender age of seven. Timber is as much a part of his life as his family is.

And his family is a part of his carpentry—as he sits on the ground in a shady part of his front yard with his tools, his daughter brings him a cool glass of water, while his grandson toddles RATHWAN SAYS WITH

Preemptive Love

IRAQI KLEICHA COOKIES

around. Family and friends from the neighborhood drop in for a visit. Rathwan’s workshop is situated near the local bazaar. There he cuts timber into smaller working sections, and brings them home to finish by hand.

In his skilled hands, this slab of wood will become a set of cookie molds for kleicha, a sweet, datefilled cookie beloved by families in this part of the world.

The stately date palm, with its lofty crown and textured trunk, is emblematic of southern Iraq, where it is thought to have originated. And kleicha—the cookie made from its fruit—is so much a part of Iraq that it is often regarded as the national cookie. It is the one offered to guests with their tea, whether in the regular visiting that happens between friends and family, or as part of religious and cultural celebrations. It is a sweet, delicious reminder of the traditions that bind Iraqis together, even as major challenges like climate change, a pandemic, political instability, and heartbreaking poverty are stacked atop decades of devastation, sanctions, and war.

For generations, kleicha has been made with wooden cookie molds, like the ones Rathwan makes. His family started making these more than six decades ago, each mold the product of a lifetime’s labor, learning, and love for his craft. In the 70s, Rathwan and his father came up with the unique heart-shaped design of their molds. Like other artisans around the world, they created their signature design by finding inspiration in the work of others.

Over time, it’s become more common for some families to use cheap plastic molds instead of these traditional wooden ones. It’s

another link to the past in a country that has already lost so much of its culture and heritage—and so many of its older generations— to war. Rathwan’s trade hasn’t suffered at all though. He sells his products to bazaar merchants all over Kurdistan, and the demand is constant.

“In other places,” he says with pride, “people use plastic, but Iraqis still love to use these molds, because we make them from teak wood, and they last a very long time.”

Rathwan still carves each mold by hand, chiseling the wood with precision and care. To the uninitiated, the process is too rapid to follow, a controlled flurry of hammer and chisel against wood. Then he stops, sets his tools aside, and reveals a beautifully whittled heart imprinted into the kleicha mold.

Rathwan finishes shaping the set, hewn from the original slab of wood, and sands their corners down. Rising from the ground, he extracts an electric drill from a tool cabinet under the eave of his home and fits it with an unusual fan-shaped bit he made himself.

Settling back down, he presses the bit into the mold and fires the drill in short bursts along the handle. Ringed circles flower in the wood.

After planing each piece to smooth it, Rathwan varnishes the molds until they gleam a deep, coppery brown.

For Rathwan, the cookie mold is more than an income. It’s a heritage passed down through generations. With each mold, he tells his family’s story, engraving it in wood, sharing it with you.

“If you take care of the molds,” he says, “they will last at least 50 years.”

We Belong to Each Other Iraq’s soundtrack is the tinkle of tea­­spoons knocking against delicate glass cups. Iraqis are quick to welcome guests into their home for tea. Even those in refugee camps, those who have very little, will share their saved portions with guests.

It’s similar in Mexico, where families invite you in for a meal, even if they barely have enough to feed themselves.

In Venezuela, even in the poorest of neighborhoods where families sometimes go days without eating because of inflation and a collapsing economy, food is shared house to house.

And in Syria, families who’ve endured years of war are always quick to usher you into their home for tea or a meal together.

Everywhere we serve, we see remarkable hospitality, an innate desire to welcome others, to connect.

For some of us, inviting a stranger into our home feels invasive, possibly dangerous. When things are in VOL. 5

A r a b i c f o r t e a k w o o d , t h e w o o d u s e d t o m a k e o u r c o o kie molds.

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TSP BAKING POWDER

ASSEMBLY:

1½

TSP GROUND CINNAMON

1

PINCH SALT

¾

CUP SUGAR

Roll out the dough to a long tube, about 1" thick. Cut the dough into 11/2" thick pieces.

Roll into a circle and flatten slightly with your hand or a glass.

Place on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.

10

TBSP BUTTER OR GHEE

1

LARGE EGG, SEPARATED

¼

CUP SUGAR

2

CUPS BUTTER

¼

CUP COOL WATER

4

CUPS ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR

1

TBSP SUGAR SYRUP

3

1

TSP POWDERED MILK

⅛

TSP YEAST

1

CUP GROUND PISTACHIOS

2

TBSP SUGAR SYRUP

1

TSP POWDERED SUGAR

1

TSP BUTTER OR GHEE

¾

CUP GROUND, PITTED DATES

¼

TSP GROUND STAR ANISE

¼

TSP GROUND CARDAMOM

1

TSP GHEE OR BUTTER

1

TSP POWDERED SUGAR

Mix flour and butter with your hands into a smooth dough. Knead. Chill the dough in the fridge for 8-12 hours. Preheat oven to 480ºF. Remove dough from the fridge and warm by kneading with your hands. In a sep­ arate bowl, mix together water, yeast, sugar, powdered milk, and sugar syrup. Slowly add wet ingredients to dough and knead.

Cover dough and let rest for 15 minutes.

Roll out dough into a long tube, about 1" thick. Cut the roll into 2" slices.

brothers, partners.

Around the world our refugee friends invite people in and share what they have.

How can you follow their example and let others know they are not alone?

TSP OIL (OPTIONAL)

CUPS ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR

Combine ingredients for either pistachio or date filling in a food processor. Pulse until it comes together into a dough-like consistency.

Roll out filling into a long tube, about 1" thick. Cut the roll into 11/2" slices.

ASSEMBLY:

Take one piece of dough into your hand, flattening and stretching it a bit. Press one piece of filling into the center of the dough and fold the extra dough around the filling. Gently press to seal and place on the baking sheet.

Remove from the mold and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 4 minutes on the top rack. Move the baking sheet to the bot­ tom rack and bake an additional 4 minutes.

Let cool for 5 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar.

COATING 4

TSP GROUND CINNAMON

1

CUP SUGAR CUP POWDERED SUGAR

DOUGH:

Place egg white in small bowl; let stand at room temperate 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy.

In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt; gradually beat into butter.

Beat egg white on high speed until stiff peaks form. Gently whisk in sugar and egg yolk. Gradually beat into butter mixture.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface. Knead gently 8-10 times. Divide the dough into 6 portions.

1-2 EGGS DOUGH:

Iraqi Kleicha

Preheat oven to 375°F. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper.

Grind walnuts, cinnamon, cardamom, and sugar in a food process. If you want a stickier mixture for stuffing the dough, add honey and oil.

Mix flour and yeast. Mix in sugar, salt, and cardamom. Mix the butter in to the dry ingre­ dients. Slowly add in water. Form into a small ball and let rest while you prep the stuffing.

3

CUPS FLOUR

1

TBSP YEAST

ASSEMBLY:

1

TSP SALT

1

TSP CARDAMOM

1

CUP BUTTER (ROOM TEMPERATURE)

½

CUP WATER

1

TSP SUGAR

OR 1

COATING

1

DOZEN

WALNUT FILLING 1

CUP WALNUTS

1

TSP CINNAMON

Form the dough into a small ball. Flatten out the dough with a rolling pin 1/4" thick.

Use a glass or cup to cut out circles from the dough. Stuff each circle with a small scoop of walnut stuffing. Once stuffed, press gently into the mold. Place on the tray.

Whisk 1-2 eggs. Brush the top of the kleicha with the egg mixture. Bake 20-30 minutes until golden.

ASSEMBLY:

On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion in a 24" long rope. Cut diagonally in 2" piec­ es. Place 1" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool on pans 2 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix sugar and cinnamon.

Dust warm cookies in cinnamon sugar or with powdered sugar. Cool on wire racks.

1 DOZEN

Venezuelan Paledonias 2

CUPS WATER

2 ½ CUPS BROWN SUGAR 6

CLOVES, GROUND OR 1 ½T ALLSPICE

2

EGGS

10

TBSP BUTTER

2

TSP BAKING SODA

2C

ALL-PURPOSE WHEAT FLOUR

DOUGH:

VENEZUELAN PA L E D O N I A COOKIES

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a small saucepan, cook water, brown sugar, and cloves over low heat to make a syrup. When thick, re­ VOL. 5

N a l i n ( p . 4 6 ) m a k e s a n d s e l l s k l e i c h a c o o k i e s f r o m h e r h o m e i n a refugee camp in Iraq.

what we often end up sharing are our stories.

We belong to each other, whether we are family, friends, strangers or even adversaries. We are all full of dreams and passions, hurts and mistakes. We are blood and bone, heart and breath. Sisters,

TSP HONEY (OPTIONAL)

1

2

FOR THE FILLING:

short supply— from toilet paper to flour—we cling to what we have, wanting to make sure our own family is provided for.

But when we do so, we miss the opportunity to see every person as a neighbor, a friend. When we share food and drink with others,

TBSP SUGAR

2

Mexican Reganadas

DOUGH:

COOKIES

TSP CARDAMOM

2

Syrian Maamoul

DATE FILLING

SY R I A N

1

1 DOZEN

PISTACHIO FILLING

MAAMOUL

move from the heat and let cool.

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and but­ ter. Add the baking soda and syrup and mix well. Add the flour a little at a time, mixing well. If the dough is loose, sprinkle more flour until it is compact and manageable.

2 DOZEN

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JOIN US AND HEAL

WHAT’S TEARING US APART. LoveAnyway.com/Community

There’s a lot that’s tearing us apart right now — but we don’t have to let it. You can wage peace right where you live. Register for our workshops to hone your peacemaking skills. Build community in your neighborhood by establishing a gathering. Inspire the next generation of student peacemakers through chapters.

We’re building the most diverse community of peacemakers on the planet.

I N F O R M A T I O N A L M O M E N T l a n g u a g e , p h r a s e , s o m e t h i n g i nteresting

CONNECTION

AD CHAPTER

GATHERINGS / CHAPTERS / WORKSHOPS / EDUCATION

War War long But begin is

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“over

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peacemaking we

do.

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HEALING

RENÉE IS A BL ACK MOM. MICHAEL IS A WHITE COP. THEY’RE BUILDING FRIENDSHIP, LISTENING TO EACH OTHER, AND FINDING A NEW WAY FORWARD. TOGETHER.

THE DIVIDE OT

OGRAP

HY BY LYNSEY WEATHERSPOON PH

Preemptive Love

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“WHEN I MEET YO U, I want to know your story. I want to know where you come from.

What makes you, you.”

Renée Liverpool is as drawn to other people as they are to her. She is warm, welcoming, and makes new friends with ease.

But there is one moment that might have tested all that: when a white police officer named Michael joined her small group at church.

Renée is a Black mom raising two Black boys in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband Jamal.

“There was a bit of tension in the group,” Renée says, remembering the first time Michael shared his story. “There’s a history between communities of color and law enforcement.”

History, indeed.

Over the past year, we’ve seen how that history bleeds into Preemptive Love

the present. The deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks (among others) at the hands of police. A wave of protests sweeping nearly every city in the United States. A painful reckoning with our past, and difficult questions about our future.

When everything is broken, how do you even start putting the pieces back together? What if you don’t know what to build in its place, or if you even have the right pieces? has spent six years on the force, most of them with the Atlanta Police Department. The tension both he and Renée felt in the room that day wasn’t exactly new to him. “I’ve always felt it when I mention that I’m a police officer,” he explains.

In other settings, tension someMICHAEL PETERSON

times has a way of spilling over.

Michael recounts being pelted with rocks and bottles of urine at times while on duty.

But in that room, something different happened. Michael and Renée took a step toward each other. It could have gone a thousand different ways. But in this case, it sparked a friendship, around which a new gathering of peacemakers sprang up, reaching across one of the most painful divides in our world today: the line between police and communities of color. long and hard about the talk she will have someday with her boys. They’re just 3 and 6 now. But the older they get—and more they grow to look like men rather than boys— RENÉE HAS THOUGHT

DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO AS A POLICE OFFICER, BUT NEVER, EVER DO ANYTHING TO TAKE AWAY THAT PERSON’S DIGNITY OR SELF RESPECT, BECAUSE THAT’S ALL THEY GOT LEFT. —CHARLES RAMSEY

the more dangerous the world becomes for them.

It’s a sobering rite of passage for Black boys in the US, “the talk.”

How to navigate encounters with police so they don’t get shot. How to survive in a world still marred by white supremacy. Renée knows her boys will wonder whether it’s safe to wear a hoodie, or if they can play in a neighbor’s yard without someone calling the police.

“You do not want to be afraid for your child’s life before they are even here,” she says. Yet this was her experience as an expecting mom. This is her experience today, as it is for countless mothers of Black sons.

A few years ago, Renée decided to start a gathering for women raising children of color, so they could share their pain, grieve together, and support one another.

She decided to call it Coffee Moms.

Soon it led to a second gathering, Friends of Coffee Moms, for anyone wanting to learn about racism, injustice, and the experience of being Black in the US. For those who participated, it was one small step toward healing, toward building something new. asks Michael about his approach to policing, he mentions a TED talk by Charles Ramsey, the former Philadelphia police commissioner, and one of the most prominent Black law enforcement officials. In his talk, Ramsey insists that to heal the present, we must reckon with the past. And for the law enforcement community, this means reckoning with a long legacy of racism.

Tracing this history back to the early days of policing in the US— and its connection to the slave trade—Ramsey says: “Maybe you EVERY TIME SOMEONE

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At the moment of birth, every person is a perfect 10. But deduct three right away, because life is temporary. If you are born into a dysfunctional family, where there’s substance abuse or domestic violence, deduct another three, because you don’t have the kind of role model you need. If you’re a member of a minority group, deduct another three, because some doors may not be open to you that are open for others. So that leaves one. That one is that person’s dignity and self respect.

Do what you have to do as a police officer, but never, ever do anything to take away that person’s dignity or self respect, because that’s all they got left.

Those words have guided Michael ever since, in his job and his personal life—eventually leading him to a gathering unlike any he’d been part of. she met Michael, Renée was asked to go on a ridealong with the police. Over the AROUND THE TIME

Preemptive Love

O FP YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FIX EVERYTHING JUST BY GATHERING WITH THOSE WHO ARE DIFFERENT, THOSE YOU FEAR, OR THOSE WITH WHOM YOU DISAGREE. BUT YOU CAN TAKE A STEP—AND THAT STEP CAN BE THE SPARK FOR THE CHANGE THAT COMES NEXT.

objections of some of her friends and loved ones, she said yes.

“It changed the way I look at policing,” Renée says. “The officer said the hardest part of his job was that he has a target on his back, simply because he’s an officer. That rang true for me [because] my sons, my husband— they feel the same way because they’re in Black skin.”

The experience didn’t alter her core beliefs. And it certainly didn’t resolve the problems of systemic racism and injustice.

But it unlocked something in Renée’s heart: a desire to hear the other person’s story, and for them to hear hers.

She felt that same desire when she heard Michael speak at their small group. So she approached

him later and asked if he’d be willing to start a new kind of gathering with her: a Love Anyway Gathering, where people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and identities come together in a safe environment to listen and learn from each other.

Michael said yes. “At first I was like, OK, let me think about this.

And then I was like, no, this is something that needs to happen.”

So they started gathering every month. Listening to each other.

Asking hard questions. Black moms, white cops, and those who are determined to find a way forward together.

It isn’t easy. There have been setbacks and misunderstandings.

Renée and Michael certainly don’t agree on everything. And a gathering like this will not make mistrust magically disappear.

But it’s making another way possible.

It’s starting a conversation that might change the way someone sees someone else, which might change the way they live and move in the world, or how they do their job, or how they work for change among their peers.

Their Love Anyway Gathering has inspired Michael to work harder to confront implicit bias among his colleagues. It’s inspired Renée to use her voice, to stop wearing a metaphorical mask and be the truest, most authentic version of herself.

“We are being heard,” she says.

“And we’re listening. That’s really what it is. It’s not about us all coming to agreement. It’s about us saying, ‘We are going to step into this environment so we can have our stories heard, so that we can speak on behalf of our little boys.’

We want to have a voice.”

in Iraq, one of our founders, Jessica Courtney, arranged a gathering of Yazidis and Turkmen. The history between these two groups is complicated to say the least—especially since ISIS, who sought to exterminate the Yazidis, recruited some of its members from the Turkmen.

The purpose was to negotiate the sale of sheep—as a first step to get both communities talking again. They rarely do business with each other anymore. Their kids don’t play with each other. Trust was shattered by the trauma of the not-too-distant past.

The conversation that day grew heated, as people expressed their pain and anger (an essential, if uncomfortable part of the healing process). By the end of the day, however, the sale was made while kids chased sheep together outside. The Yazidis and Turkmen talked about meeting again, and shared the hope of walking in each other’s villages someday.

This one gathering did not heal everything between the Yazidis and Turkmen. But as Jessica told the room that day, “Today isn’t about fixing everything. Today is about taking a step.”

It’s not always easy or linear. It’s complicated, sorting through emotions and stories, being vulnerable with one another.

You’re not going to fix everything just by gathering with those who are different, those you fear, or those with whom you disagree. But you can take a step— and that step can be the spark for the change that comes next.

That’s what Renée and Michael are discovering together. Not rebuilding what was broken— not exactly. But building something new.

A FEW YEARS AGO

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were just a watchman trying to make sure people were safe.

But you might have been chasing down slaves.” Jump ahead to the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 60s. “Who was it that was enforcing Jim Crow? Who was it that people encountered on Bloody Sunday, when they walked across [the Edmund Pettis] bridge? Police.”

Ramsey goes on to challenge his fellow officers to avoid an “us against them” mindset toward the very communities they’re meant to serve—and, crucially, to honor the dignity of every person they encounter, no matter the circumstances:

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A market in Beijing. A meatpacking plant in Germany. All inflection points in a global pandemic that has turned our whole reality upside down, everything we took for granted about everyday life. Rituals both sacred and ordinary. How we gather with our loved ones. How we shop. How we mourn the dead.

COVID-19 has impacted every part of life, even the way we speak. We’ve learned more in the past year about the spread of disease than we ever wanted to know. The language of a pandemic has become part of our everyday lexicon. Clusters. Contact tracing. Community spread.

But this crisis will pass. And the tools and knowledge we gain from it? We just might be able to use them to stop an even bigger pandemic: The pandemic of violence.

BAR IN MICHIGAN.

accustomed to thinking of violence as a disease. After all, it’s a behavior. A choice. Perhaps something innate to the human condition. Those who commit acts of violence are to be locked away. They are without hope, beyond redemption.

Except…

This way of thinking only reinforces the cycle of violence. It’s like treating a virus by killing the patient.

None of us are immune to the disease of violence. But there is a cure—and it can heal everything that’s tearing us apart.

MOST OF US AREN’T

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After 10 years fighting epidemics in Somalia and Uganda, Dr. Gary Slutkin returned to Chicago exhausted, physically and emotionally. He had no idea what to do next, until a friend told him about a spate of gun violence that was killing many of Chicago’s children. ¶ He began poring over the data, and soon recognized a familiar pattern: clusters. Infectious diseases like COVID-19 have them.

Think Wuhan, China. Northern Italy. New York. Miami. ¶ Chicago had them, too. Wave after wave of violence, concentrated in certain places. ¶ But why? Is it because some people are inherently more prone to violence than others? No. It’s because the biggest predictor of violence is exposure to violence. Or as one BBC article put it: “One of the primary indicators that someone will carry out an act of violence is first being the victim of one.” ¶ Violence begets violence. In other words, it spreads like a disease. But the parallels between violence and a virus don’t stop here.

Violence Infects Like a Disease.

Humans have long believed that violence has a profound impact on the inner self—your spirit, your soul, your heart. What’s less widely understood is that violence has a physiological impact, not unlike a virus.

Just as viruses can affect organs, tissues, and immune systems, violence affects your brain, in some cases rewiring it altogether.

Survivors of violence often display a heightened response to threats, perceived or real. Many people are compelled to commit acts of violence in order to win the acceptance of their peers—whether it’s the local street gang or the ISIS militants who just rolled into town—in part because the brain experiences alienation or social rejection the same way it experiences physical pain.

Violence alters your brain in ways you can’t control.

But brains can be re-rewired, and violence can be unmade.

Violence Can Be Stopped Like a Disease.

Epidemiologists have a threefold playbook for disrupting a pandemic: stop the spread, reduce the risk, and change the norms.

You start by identifying clusters, outbreaks—and rushing help to these frontline hotspots—stopping the spread. But you also have to identify those who are most vulnerable to infection and do everything you can to protect them before they get sick—wearing masks, social distancing, helping those who are elderly and immunocompromised—reducing the risk.

Preemptive Love

FEAR AND PREJUDICE LEAD TO VIOLENCE. BUT WHEN WE SIT DOWN WITH OUR ENEMY, REAL OR IMAGINED, ANOTHER POSSIBILITY EMERGES. WE CAN STOP THE NEXT WAR BEFORE IT STARTS.

To fully eradicate a disease, though, you have to confront the underlying behaviors that allowed it to spread in the first place— changing the norms. Ultimately, you don’t win by treating symptoms or even by repelling the virus. To eradicate disease, we have to change.

So how do we end the pan­ demic of violence—and possibly end war itself? The same way.

To End War, Treat it Like a Disease.

The work we do around the world—in Syria, Iraq, Mexico, Venezuela, Lebanon, the US—it’s about more than handing out food or helping refugees climb out of poverty. We exist to disrupt the cycle of violence. We exist to end war.

It’s not pie in the sky. But by applying the same time-tested, proven principles for stopping any other disease, we can stop the disease of violence.

Maybe not everywhere. Maybe not all at once. Maybe it’s a lifelong pursuit rather than a once-anddone endeavor. But it can be done.

Violence is not inevitable. It’s a

disease, and there is a cure.

This is our threefold playbook...

Relief to stop the spread of violence.

We go to the epicenters of violence with food, shelter, and medicine— often while the bombs are still falling and the bullets still flying— because it’s the only way to stop the spread of war. If families are left to fend for themselves, feeling forsaken by the rest of the world, then the story of the next war is already being written. Exposure to violence is the biggest predictor of violence. We help fast to mitigate the worst effects so we can disrupt its retaliatory cycle. In other words, we help mend the wounds of war before it’s too late.

Jobs to reduce the risk of violence.

Nothing reduces the risk of violence like a job. An Oxford University study found that higher income dramatically decreases the length and likelihood of war.

Women who own their own businesses invest in their families’ future instead of bracing for the next disaster. Young men with jobs

that offer dignity and income have less incentive to pick up a gun for a militia or a terror group. Whole communities have less to gain— and more to lose—by going to war when they are able to flourish.

Community to change the ideas that lead to war. Perhaps the greatest

lesson of COVID-19 is that it can affect any of us. The same is true for violence. War is not an “over there” problem. Like any disease creeping through our bloodstream, violence is present in our heads and our hearts, long before it ever reaches our hands. We have to re-rewire our brains so we can learn to live with—and for—each other. Too many of us don’t have a single friend of a different background. Too many of us think of those on the other end of the political spectrum as enemies. Too many of us see battles to be won instead of people to be loved.

Fear and prejudice lead to violence. But when we sit down with our enemy, real or imagined, another possibility emerges. We can start to heal what is tearing us apart. We can see that we belong to each other. We can stop the next war before it starts.

I

It’s a model that works. We’ve been proving it for over a decade. From Iraq to Mexico, and even in the US, we’ve seen how changed ideas lead to changed ways of living—new relationships across what used to be enemy lines—disrupting the viral spread of violence.

But just like flattening the curve of a pandemic, it only works if we each do our part. To stop the disease of violence, we need you.

T’S NOT JUST A DREAM.

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Violence Spreads Like a Disease.

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How to Listen Well

HOW DOES PEACEMAKING START?

of us to remember a time when we were as divided as we are now. Divided by political parties, by which movements you support, by whether you wear a mask or not, by what you believe, who you promote. It can be exhausting. And if we’re not careful, we can add to the division in our conversations.

The dining room table can be a place of gathering, community, and relationship. Or it can be a battlefield for arguing, blaming, and accusation. How we approach hard conversations—the work we do before we even sit down at the table—makes all the difference.

It can be hard for some

Preemptive Love

By listening.

When we began our work, our first task wasn’t providing relief, or creating a single job, or even building community across enemy lines. It was listening. We listened obsessively to those who came before us, to those we wanted to help. It is still the first step in everything we do.

Listening well—listening with empathy—is a skill. It’s like a muscle, and as with any other muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. Without use, it atrophies.

Empathetic listening begins with your posture toward the other person. Are your arms folded? Is

your mind closed? Listening is about receiving, not reacting. It’s not about responding, arguing, or justifying. It’s about understanding the other person.

To listen well, we have to leave our baggage behind. We have to become a bridge into the other person’s world. We get to observe, be curious, and be present.

Listening well means staying aware of internal responses that might reveal the current posture you hold. The more you know where you begin and what biases and prejudices you may hold, the more you will grow as a listener.

We’ve had many hard but rewarding conversations just like this in our Love Anyway Gatherings. And out of this we’ve developed these helpful listening guidelines:  Listen to understand, learn, and celebrate the other person’s unique identity.  Try to minimize your nonverbal reactions—for example, your facial expressions—so the other person feels comfortable sharing without inhibition.  Remember: you’re not there to convert, offer advice, or to fix the other person’s struggles.  We are all at different points in our journey, so avoid tone policing or shaming the other person for using the wrong language.

Focus on the spirit and heart of what they are saying.  You can disagree with someone’s ideas, beliefs, or opinions.

But do not dismiss their experiences.

One way to practice intentional, empathetic listening is to sit with a partner, knee to knee. Using a given question prompt, take turns speak-

HOW WE APPROACH HARD CONVERSATIONS— THE WORK WE DO BEFORE WE EVEN SIT DOWN AT THE TABLE—MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

ing for two minutes, uninterrupted.

While one of you speaks, the other listens without reaction. After each of you has spoken, take two minutes to dialogue together, practicing curiosity as humble learners.

When you first begin, you might start with more general and inviting questions. But as you continue in this exercise over time, try questions that go deeper to build trust and vulnerability.

Listening with empathy can feel a bit uncomfortable or unnatural at first. But with time and practice, relationships grow.

People begin to speak their truth with courage as they feel acceptance and value.

As we practice listening— whether it’s on the frontlines of violence or from the comfort of our living rooms—we learn that personal stories are powerful and beautiful connectors. Listening to someone else’s story is one of the best ways we can build trust, con-

nect more deeply, and truly know each other. Listening breaks down barriers and creates empathy. It shows you truly value the other person.

Stories can provide common ground even when you disagree or hold different assumptions.

When you listen to another person’s story, you sit with them in the experi­ence and hold their emotions, without judgment or bias.

The result is transformed relationship, each person holding space for the other.

Loving the Other Person, Not Winning the Debate

Before you engage in that hard conversation, think about your intentions. Are you having this conversation in order to “win”?

Are you hoping to change the other person’s mind, put them in their place, or make yourself seem smarter or more aware? Check your intentions before you begin.

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THE POINT OF HARD CONVERSATIONS IS TO SHOW UP, TO HEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S EXPERIENCE AND BELIEFS, AND TO TRY TO EMPATHIZE AND UNDERSTAND WHERE THEY’RE COMING FROM.

It’s OK to feel passionately; it’s good to have convictions. But if your passion doesn’t leave room for those who might be equally passionate about different or even conflicting things, then it’s easy to see only an argument to be won, rather than a person to be loved.

Enter into hard conversations with a loving posture. You can listen well to someone else, understand their perspective, and still not agree with them. That’s OK. The point isn’t to win them to your side—or for you to give up and merge with their beliefs. The point of hard conversations is to show up, to hear someone else’s experience and beliefs, and to try to empathize and understand where they’re coming from. Then to go forward in your life, leaving space for those who might think, look, believe, or live differently than you do.

Let the table be a welcoming place, a proving ground for our Preemptive Love

willingness to sit in tension, to be wrong, and to empathize with others and learn their stories.

How to Prepare Your Kids for Hard Conversations and Strong Emotions

You might feel prepared for hard conversations, but what about your kids? It’s good to be ready not only for them to witness these conversations, but also for the strong emotions they may see on display, or feel themselves.

Before your next family gettogether where you know things might get heated or difficult, let your kids know. Tell them ahead of time about how they might hear people argue, or notice people sounding frustrated or angry.

Let your kids know this is OK. Talk about a time when they felt big emotions. Ask what that was like for them. Did they scream or cry?

Did they feel hot all over or start to shake? Let them know that adults

feel these same things, even if they normally are better at hiding them.

Big emotions can feel scary for little ones. But by recognizing them, we help our kids know that it’s OK to feel them. Talk to your kids about how we use our big emotions. Do we use them to hurt others, either through our words or actions? Or do we use our emotions to help us understand more about ourselves, so we can share with others?

You can also teach your kids a few calming techniques to use if they’re feeling upset. Taking small sips of water has been shown to help reduce anxiety.

Or have them try focusing on their breathing. Have them place their hands on their belly and breathe in deeply, pushing their belly out.

Then breathe out through the nose, slowly. Kids might also find music or movement to be helpful in bringing their body and mind back to a restful state.

But what if you are the one to lose your cool? Let your kids know this can happen sometimes and the best thing to do is step away and calm down. But also teach them to circle back, to apologize for not handling things well, and to reengage with a posture of listening.

Over and over again we want to teach our kids that big emotions will happen—that’s OK! What matters is that we handle them well and make amends if our emotions come out sideways.

Last, don’t be afraid to talk with your kids about how you listen well, how you want to learn about others even if you don’t agree with them, how you want to speak up for what you believe, but not in a way that hurts someone else.

As we model leaning in to hard conversations, it’s incredibly

important that we bring our kids along with us.

10 Self-Reflection Questions

Before you enter a difficult conversation, do your own work. Be as emotionally prepared as possible.

Use the questions below to check your intentions, emotions, and awareness of your own reactions.

Be honest. Allow your answers to guide you into greater health, so you are better equipped to love and care for others.

1. What experiences from my

past have informed my perspective on this issue?

2. Am I aware of the full history surrounding the issue we’re talking about, not just what was presented or taught to me?

3. What assumptions am I making about the other person?

Are those assumptions true?

4. How can I speak with convic-

tion, while also leaving room for the other person to have a different perspective?

5. Is my goal to win? Or to listen and make the other person feel valued and heard?

6. Am I holding on to anything I need to let go of?

7. What are some ways I can calm myself when I’m feeling anxious or angry?

8. Do I listen and speak from a place of curiosity and openness, or out of conviction and defensiveness?

9. Do I freeze people in time and associate them with a specific action from their past, either positive or negative?

10. How have my own beliefs changed over the years? What led to that? * Check out our Self-Reflection Deck—

with questions for kids and adults— in Preemptive Love’s Shop.

A Safe Place to Gather

Our Love Anyway Gatherings provide a safe place to practice empathetic listening. They’re a place to be vulnerable and curious, to set aside our differences and biases, and to lean into uncomfortable and hard conversations. It’s learning about others just as much as we learn about ourselves.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that our world has layers upon layers of pain. Betrayal, tension, violence, hatred, loneliness, misunderstanding—these have been our fellow travelers all year long. These are the seeds of war buried deep in our communities, our hearts.

But knee to knee, open with ourselves, our neighbors, our loved ones, our kids—we can remake the ways we live and relate to each other. Where differences aren’t a threat, but an invitation. Where the table isn’t a battleground, but a binding place.

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SHOP

Premium coffee & refugee-made soap, delivered to your door.

THIS ONE DOES.

Freshly roasted coffee supporting women in Honduras and asylum seekers in Mexico.

Hand-crafted soap from Iraq made with the finest all-natural ingredients. Weekly, monthly, quarterly options available. Subscribe and change lives today.

CAN A SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE CHANGE LIVES?

AD CHAPTER

GIFTS TO END WAR

The

PreemptiveLove.shop/Subscriptions

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Home is a place to be known. To be loved. To belong.

With these handmade gifts, you can make your home an image of the world you want. A world where everyone rises.

LAVENDER SET $32

This limited edition set includes:  Refugee-made soap, lavender. All-natural soap made with 100% saponified olive oil. Lavender essential oils. 3 oz.  Refugee-made hand-knit washcloth  Lavender candle. Hand-poured soy candle, made with

phthalate-free fragrance and includes a wood lid. Made by young mothers in the US learning professional skills.

COPPER CANDLES $45 3-inch $55 4-inch

Refugee-made, hand-hammered copper vessel with 100% paraffin wax and natural cotton wick. Fragrance oil made with essential and synthetic oils.

Contains a small amount of vybar.

No dyes or other additives. Limited quantity.

PERSIAN CANDLES

TURQUOISE CANDLES

$26

$32

Refugee-made candles with a light jasmine scent in a ceramic vessel.

Candles made with 100% paraffin wax and natural cotton wick. Fragrance oil made with essential and synthetic oils.

No dyes or other additives. Limited quantity. Available in:

Hand-poured by refugees, these candles are scented with lemongrass essential oils to deter mosquitos.

Limited quantity.

WOODEN CANDLES $35

Each candle is hand-poured and hand-carved by refugees. Fragranced with vanilla, golden peach, and a gentle musk, these come in a variety of natural wood grains.

Fragrance made with essential oils.

Limited quantity.

WOODEN CANDLES

PERSIAN CANDLES

Pink Green Olive Cream

Copper, Persian, turquoise, and wooden candles all phthalate-free, meeting California’s strict Prop 65 requirements for indoor air quality.

Preemptive Love

TURQUOISE CANDLE

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Made of 100% natural fiber cotton with 2 grommets for hanging. Screen printed with varying textures.

No two prints are exactly alike.

Available in: Script,

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$52 S mall: 17 x 27 inches $76 M edium: 23 x 36 inches $99 L arge: 34 x 58 inches

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FLAGS

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Bold, Black TEA TOWELS $24

Hand-stitched tea towel by Syrian refugees. Size: 24 x 18 inches.

Available in: Black White

FACE MASKS $10

Handmade by refugees. 100% cotton 3-ply mask.

Adjustable ear loops for comfort.

Small: 5 inches nose to chin.

Large: 5.5 inches nose to chin.

Available in: Navy Grey Neutral Preemptive Love

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Marwa, Sozan, and Gozê lost everything to ISIS. They survived genocide. They endured unspeakable trauma and hardship. They lost their homes, their village, their neighbors.

But it couldn’t stop these women. They learned the art of soapmaking and perfected their skills.

They dreamed up new colors, new scents. They built a business, a sisterhood, that has paved the way for hundreds of others. They’ve seen their soap everywhere—from homes around the globe to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. When we partner with refugees, it’s not because we think they need us. It’s because we know how much we—the world—need them. We need their gifts.

We need their abilities. We need their voices.

Marwa, Sozan, and Gozê may have been stifled by war. But they are determined to rise.

SIX YEARS AGO

Determined to Rise

TEAK COOKIE MOLD $15

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Cookie molds handcarved by an Iraqi artisan. Comes in a handmade cotton drawstring bag with recipe card. Variations in color, size, and mold shape may apply. Approximate dimensions: 8.5 x 3 x 1 inch

elove

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HONDURAN COFFEE $18

Medium-body and acidity, with notes of apricot, fig, honey, and chocolate.

Whole bean, 12oz. bag. Freshly roasted.

Non-subscription.

CAMPFIRE MUG $18

Enamel-covered steel holds 16oz.

4 x 4 x 3.5 inches. Dishwasher-safe.

Not microwave-safe.

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SOAP & WASHCLOTH SET $20

Refugee-made soap and hand-knit washcloths. Washcloths available in:

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WE AR YO UR LOV E Your love is a force. It cannot be silenced or contained. It is brave enough to step across enemy lines. Strong enough to change the way things are. Show the world your love.

All adult apparel certified by the Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP).

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EMBROIDERED CROPPED HOODIE PULLOVER

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Storm Peach

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Embroidered lettering with dyed-tomatch drawstrings, raw hem, and dropped shoulder.

52% combed and ring-spun cotton, 48% poly fleece.

Available in:

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$50

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CROPPED HOODIE PULLOVER

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LOVE ANYWAY SWEATERS $45

Screen printed tri-blend, sponge fleece, raglan sweatshirt in unisex sizes. Made of 52% Airlume combed and ringspun cotton, 48% polyester fleece.

Available in: Mauve Grey Heather Forest Heather Dust

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LOVE CANNOT BE SILENT $25

LOVE ANYWAY VINTAGE

 Black, tri-blend tee in unisex sizes. Made

of 50% poly, 25% combed and ring-spun cotton, and 25% rayon.  Charcoal-black, tri-blend tee in unisex sizes. Made of 50% poly, 25% combed and ring-spun cotton, and 25% rayon.  Navy, tri-blend tee in unisex sizes. Made of 50% poly, 25% combed and ring-spun cotton, and 25% rayon.

$25 Deep heather grey tee in unisex

sizes. Made of 52% combed and ringspun cotton, 48% poly.

LOVE BEYOND BORDERS

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Made of 52% combed and ring-spun cotton, 48% poly.

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Vintage black tee in unisex sizes.

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Made of 50% poly, 25% combed and ring-spun cotton, 25% rayon.  Heather black tee in unisex sizes.

90% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton, 10% poly.  Deep heather grey tee in unisex sizes.

Made of 52% combed and ring-spun cotton, 48% poly.

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 Oatmeal, tri-blend tee in unisex sizes.

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LOVE ANYWAY HAT $24

Custom-made, unstructured dad hat.

Preemptive Love heart logo metal buckle with tuck-in adjustable strap. “Imagine the More Beautiful World� lettered binding interior. One size fits most. 100% cotton.

Spot-clean or handwash. Available in: Green Navy

BEANIE $21

100% acrylic, hypoallergenic.

12 inches long.

One size fits most.

Available in: Carolina Blue Black Preemptive Love

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Every sip of coffee, every bar of soap is an opportunity to wage peace. To have quality, artisanal goods sent to your door month after month—and to send prosperity and hope around the world.

HONDURAN COFFEE $17

Choose how often you want to receive your coffee (every 1-3 weeks or every 1-3 months).

From Copán Ruinas, Honduras.

Medium-body and acidity, with notes of apricot, fig, honey, and chocolate. Whole bean, 12oz. bag. Freshly roasted.

REFUGEE-MADE SOAP $25

Made in Iraq with 100% pure ingredients including saponified olive oil and essential oils.

Fragrance-free. 3oz.

Because this product is handmade, it may vary in color.  Monthly: 3 all-natural, handforged soaps delivered to you monthly.  Quarterly: 3 all-natural, handforged soaps delivered to you every three months.

AMBER EARRINGS $32 Bar $30 M ini Hoop $34 Arch $30 Stud

Each earring is handmade. Due to the unique nature of amber, no two earrings are alike.

Color, pattern, and shape variations should be expected.

Silver backing.

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$30

60% cotton, 40% polyester. Cover-stitched collar, shoulders, armholes, ribbed cuffs and waistband.

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Made by hand, no two dolls look exactly alike. Each doll comes with a special name meaning “peace� in a different language.

(Due to the fabric and patterns available to our makers, dolls may vary from pictures.)

LOVE ANYWAY SWEATER KIDS

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$35 Large: 11.8 x 9.8 inches $25 Small: 5.5 x 10 inches

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Even the youngest among us can be a peacemaker.

Kids can often see the more beautiful world before our adult eyes catch a glimpse of it. Fuel their imaginations for peace with these gifts.

PEACE DOLL

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LONG SLEEVE KIDS $22

Available in 2T-5T. 52% Airlume combed and ringspun cotton, 48% poly. Certified

by Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP). Available in: Pink Blue Grey

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Available in sizes YS-YL. 52% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton, 48% poly. Certified

by Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP).

STUFFED ANIMALS $25 Panda family

Two panda dolls— one big and one mini. Each panda doll may vary.

Made with acrylic yarn. Limited quantity. 5 x 3.5 x 2 inches; 4 x 3 x 2 inches $35 Blue puppy

$35 Pink puppy

Each puppy doll may vary in colors from light grey to beige and brown.

Made with acrylic yarn. Limited quantity. Approximate dimensions: 11.5 x 3 x 3 inches

Each puppy doll may vary in colors from light grey to beige and brown.

Made with acrylic yarn. Limited quantity. Approximate dimensions: 11.5 x 3 x 3 inches $35 Brown bear

Each bear doll may vary. Made with acrylic yarn.

Limited quantity.

Approximate dimensions: 10 x 3 x 3 inches

YOUTH LOVE ANYWAY SWEATER $38

Screen-printed tri-blend, sponge fleece, raglan sweatshirt in unisex sizes. Made of 52% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton, 48% polyester fleece. Certified by the Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP).

$35 Ballerina bunny

Each bunny doll may vary. Made with acrylic yarn.

Limited quantity.

Approximate dimensions: 12 x 3 x 3 inches

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IMPACT REPORT

WHERE WE WORK

WE

The work we do around the world—it’s more than food and medicine for those fleeing violence. It’s more than jobs for those rebuilding.

It’s more than mending the wounds of the last war. It’s stopping the next war before it starts. We work to end war, to heal all that is tearing us apart—so we can all rise. Together.

SYRIA

150

When families are left to fend for themselves, the story of the next war has already been written.

We rush to the epicenters of violence with food, shelter, and medicine to stop the spread of war.

IT workers trained and deployed into the workforce

LEBANON

COMMUNITY

4,850 provided with shelter

WE

SERVED

6,923

MEXICO

3,684

received psychological care

VENEZUELA

94,181 served with food

1,203

1,961

participated in workshops

received legal services

COLOMBIA

125,243 patient visits

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new businesses started

848

RELIEF

231,319

Nothing reduces the risk of violence like a job.

So we’re revolutionizing refugee work—launching new businesses and creating jobs they can do anywhere, with nothing but a smartphone.

farmers returned to their land

IRAQ

SERVED

SERVED

1,085

SEPTEMBER 2019 – SEPTEMBER 2020

WE

JOBS

1,400

children provided with education, therapeutic play, and/or protective services

UNITED

STATES

5,413

Fear leads to violence. But when we sit down with each other, a new possibility emerges. We’re building the most diverse community of peacemakers to change the ideas that lead to war.

180

joined Love Anyway Gatherings

127

joined student chapters

attended peacemaking events

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“THIS BOOK, THIS WAY OF LIFE IS

A GAME CHANGER.” — PROPAGANDA

LoveAnyway.com/Book

“This book is heartbreaking and hopeful, but ‘love anyway’ isn’t just a phrase to make us feel good; it’s bravery, sacrifice, and joy beyond comprehension. I have never wanted to be a part of something more.”

— Lauren Holiday, two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer champion

The acclaimed book from Jeremy Courtney, available at Amazon.com

It’s not about the other person. It’s about us. Our posture. Our hearts.

It’s the conviction that everyone is worth loving, regardless of their point of view, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with them, regardless of the preconceived notions we hold. ¶ We love, not in spite of who others are, but because of who they are, in the fullness of their humanity. ¶ Love anyway is not a badge or an excuse. It’s not patronizing or dismissive. It’s not a defensive move to protect or hold on to power for ourselves. It’s not an excuse to avoid doing the deep work of self-reflection, evaluation, and change. ¶ It’s a challenge, an invitation to look at your biases and assumptions, your fears and worst-case scenarios. It’s uncomfortable and scary. It releases control and doesn’t grasp for it back. It says again and again and again: I may be wrong. I may need to change. ¶ It’s an invitation to love at a higher level. To look another human in the eye and affirm that we belong to each other, wholly. ¶ It’s a continual pursuit of change, growth, and connection.

It’s leaving space for where we might be wrong or our perspective incomplete. ¶ Love anyway is a constant commitment to reflection and revision.

It’s holding our beliefs with open hands, allowing time and experience to change our minds, and to change the minds of those around us. ¶ It’s a lifelong journey toward radical acceptance of ourselves and others. It’s knowing we cannot fully thrive while others are suffering. It is living out the more beautiful world, hand in hand. ¶ Love anyway demands grace for our enemy, and releases us from the things we have done, the people we’ve been. It holds all our past and all we might become as essential pieces of who we are right now. ¶ It’s a home for the homeless, hope for the hopeless, safety for the targeted, welcome for the marginalized. ¶ Love anyway is peace for us all.

THE WORLD IS SCARY AS HELL. LOVE ANYWAY.

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE

PA I D

BLAINE, WA PERMIT NO. 207 1300 Darbyton Drive Hewitt, TX 76643