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Since the First World War to today’s war reality, civilian victims have grown from 16% to more than 90% of total casualties. CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict) born in this tragic time works to ensure assistance to nameless war victims, who are sadly absent from international statistics.
CIVIC, based in Washington DC, was founded in 2003 by a young Californian activist and humanitarian, Marla Ruzicka. She began operating in the Afghanistan in late 2001 with the NGO Global Exchange.
Shortly after the fall of Baghdad in 2003, she moved to Baghdad and began her work there. After traveling to these conflict zones and realizing the need for an organization to address the needs of the victims of these conflicts, this little “yankee” started CIVIC to focus specifically on the plight of innocent civilians devastated by war.
In 2001, just weeks after the start of the war in Afghanistan, Marla traveled to refugee camps in Pakistan and to a hospital in Afghanistan. This first glimpse of the real and tragic human cost of war changed Marla’s life forever.
In that post 11 September scenario, Marla noted that no one – not even the U.S. military – was keeping count or helping those civilians injured and killed. After organizing a door-to-door survey of the Afghan people, she took her results to Washington.
In 2003, after six months in Iraq, she started CIVIC. Her time at the organization was not long. On the 16th of April 2005, while returning from visiting Harah, a three years old child she was working to help, Marla was killed in a suicide bomb attack on Airport Road in Baghdad. Six other people were also killed in the blast, one of them is Faziz Ali Salim, CIVIC’s country director for Iraq.
After Marla’s death, CIVIC’s board of directors works hard to continue Marla’s mission. In December 2005 they hired executive and associate directors. Even in spite of this terrible situation nothing changes the organization’s core mission.
They continue to work daily to ensure war victims receive recognition and assistance from warring parties. It goes on with the support of a vast network of government and military officials, humanitarians, advocates, journalists, and volunteers.
CIVIC continues to persuade the US Congress to fully fund programs for war victims in Afghanistan and Iraq, by bringing the human cost of war to the attention of policymakers and the public.
From its office in Washington DC, at 1605 Connecticut Avenue NW – 2nd Floor, CIVIC utilizes information from its vast network of contacts on the ground, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“When we’re on the ground in these countries – from Ms. Holewinski, CIVIC’s executive director, Afghanistan to Iraq to Nepal, we meet war victims and hear their stories” told us. “There is nothing that pulls at your heart strings more than holding the hand of an innocent mother who has lost her children.”
The humanitarian organization is always looking for doctors and hospitals who are willing to donate their time and facilities to help children who have been injured in war who can’t get the care they need inside their own countries.
They have a small program working with partner organizations where they work to identify children who need this service. The organization continues to grow and like other organizations is in need of financial resources to ensure the work can continue.
“The best thing anyone can do to help”, says Ms. Holewinski, “is to make a donation to our organization. 100% of all individual donations goes directly to our program work”.
Recently, staff has traveled to several different countries and they’re now expanding their work to other conflicts. CIVIC’s executive director Ms. Holewinski traveled to Sri Lanka and Nepal and she and CIVIC’s associate director, Marla Bertagnolli, are planning a trip to Colombia this fall.
Recently, actors and producers have paid increasing attention to important causes. Movies such as Hotel Rwanda, Lord of War and Blood Diamond, are eloquent examples. There is preliminary talk about a movie to me made on Marla’s life. Rumor has it the movie will be made in 2009 and Kirsten Dunst (Spiderman, Elizabethtown, Marie Antoniette) will play Marla.
I’m sure that a movie dedicated to the young activist will touch people’s minds (and hearts) and explain the plight of war victims. Marla Ruzicka (12.31.76 – 04.16.05) will eternally be a humanitarian icon who opened a gate for those who had no voice.
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