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Drawn to Disasters, North Dakota Native Makes a Difference in Iraq
FrontLines - February 2009
Baghdad—“When the call came that they needed volunteers, I knew I had to respond.”
Tami Halmrast-Sanchez (standing, second from left) visits the Medina Market in Baghdad’s Shaab District in September 2008.
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Tamra “Tami” Halmrast-Sanchez said that is what sealed her decision to sign up for a six-month tour with USAID in war-torn Iraq in May 2008.
The disaster management expert has spent most of her 22-year professional career working in tenuous situations—from famines to hurricanes and from earthquakes to floods. She has hopped continents to provide food to displaced civilians or erect make-shift shelters for survivors
as part of her work with USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.
Now Halmrast-Sanchez is in the thick of things in Iraq. She is putting her experience and skills behind a number of programs aimed at helping the country—and its citizens—rebuild.
Growing up in Bismarck, N.D., Halmrast-Sanchez was sure she would be a teacher like her father with a sideline in sports—her father was a history teacher and wrestling coach—but fell under the spell of adventure and enlisted in the Peace Corps. Once in Guatemala, she set her far-reaching
sights on rebuilding lives.
“My father instilled in me the importance of service to one’s country. And I chose to come to Iraq because I know this is the right thing to do,” says Halmrast-Sanchez in a soft, unhurried voice.
Over the past six months, Halmrast-Sanchez has lived with both traditional and embedded PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) at forward operating base Loyalty, in New Baghdad, and in Hillah, just south of the capital, Baghdad. She has toiled with her colleagues from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. military to help Iraqis rebuild their country.
Recently, she volunteered to work in one of the toughest neighborhoods and is now covering
Sadr City and other areas of Northeast Baghdad. Halmrast-Sanchez is working to strengthen the management skills of city and governorate administrators to improve the delivery of municipal
services like water, sewer, electricity, and trash disposal.
“On one hand it is exhilarating
to be working with dedicated
people on trying to improve the living conditions
in Baghdad, but on the other hand it can be frustrating because they are learning how to take care of the problems themselves, instead of having
the central government do everything for them as it was in the past,” Halmrast-Sanchez said.
She says she is most proud of the projects that focus on equipping
widows with new skills and alternate livelihoods.
Vocational training for women in sewing and tailoring, computer and mobile-phone maintenance, and cosmetology is the start of a solid and sustainable future, she says. In addition, small loans and grants offered through USAID’s microfinance programs help Iraqis to kick-start businesses, something they could not do before.
So far USAID has spent more than $6 billion on programs designed to stabilize communities; foster economic and agricultural growth; and build the capacity of the national, local, and provincial governments to respond to the needs of the Iraqi people. .
★
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