He had been living with one functioning eye since 1999, when a stroke caused the loss of sight in his left eye at age 33. Then in 2014, his right eye failed him.
Willy is co-founder of Habibi International, a humanitarian organisation providing healthcare and education for internally displaced persons — those who are forced from their homes but remain within the same country — and refugees. Isis has since been defeated. But the Yazidis, whose faith shares some elements with Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism, are unable to return to Sinjar, which lies in ruins and remains a conflicted area.
He returned home to think what to do next. The answer came in late 2015, when he received a text message from a Yazidi teenager he had met in Turkey, who was back in the Kurdistan region.The teen also sent some photos of his surroundings — and the photos, says Willy, “broke heart”. The teen’s family were living like squatters in an unfinished home, with a blue tarp covering their lodging.That, he says, was the moment when he knew he should go.
Their first medical clinic was held in an unfinished apartment. “Everything was mobile makeshift,” he describes. “We simply moved our doctors in there.” Children in one of the camps Habibi International serves. More than 7,000 Yazidis, including about 3,000 children, live in this camp, Berseve Two.Most of the Singaporeans in Habibi’s field team are volunteers who could spend anything between two weeks and six months in the Kurdistan region. There are also some who have joined Habibi full-time. One of them is Heidi Tan, 34.
But they still need help, and Habibi has met their needs “only a very small scale”, Willy stresses. For example, in Duhok governorate, which Zakho is a part of, there are 16 other camps.