Your financial contribution puts tools in their hands and hope in the hearts of displaced Christians as they work to reconstruct their communities.
Restore
Peace
Rebuild
Society
Secure A
Future
You Make the Difference!
IMPACT REPORT
2024–2025
2024 was another challenging year for the Christian communities in Iraq. An increase in ISIS activity, regional conflicts stemming from the Israel-Hamas War, water scarcity due to an historic 4-year drought, and economic instability continue to be the key issues for those Christian families
determined to remain.
True to their history, the Iraqi Christians continue to persevere despite these
difficulties. These are 1st century Christians who still speak Aramaic, the native tongue of Jesus. Despite all of the hardships they’ve experienced, they love their ancestral homes in Iraq. They want to be heard; they desire a better future for themselves and their children. They want to live peacefully, and not only to survive, but to thrive in a land they’ve called home for thousands of years.
Learn more about SWIC’s work in 2024 and hopes for 2025 in our newly released Impact Report. And thanks to all who continue to support our mission.
Christianity in Iraq is Perilously Close to Extinction
Years of devastation by ISIS and militia activity, followed by the pandemic, have forced Christians to flee from their ancestral homelands. Some have returned and some want to return, but they need to know that there is a safe and economically viable future for them in Iraq.
What can you do? SWIC offers opportunities for you to volunteer, help others understand the situation in Iraq, fundraise, and be part of the conversation on Iraq’s rich Christian heritage.
Models for Prosperity Now and into the Future
Small Business
Redevelopment Grants
This initiative helps Iraqi Christian families remain in their traditional homeland with one-time funding for small businesses with which the grant applicant has prior experience.
Family Farm
Initiative
Our one-time grants help farm families purchase chicks or sheep which they raise to maturity and then sell for profits which are used to buy future rounds of livestock. Each farm directly supports a multi-generational family.
Education
Projects
Long term sustainable progress is rooted in education. SWIC partners with grassroots organizations that are finding sustainable solutions to meet the fundamental education needs so schools can provide a safe, stable environment where children of all faiths can learn together.
You Make a Difference
Christians who have stayed now want to restore at least part of what they lost but lack capital. By supporting the one-time redevelopment grants for businesses and farms, as well as education, you are helping to build a healthy and sustainable foundation for the current and next generation.
Wafaa, a widow living in Ankawa, has three children and needed to make a living for her family. SWIC donors provided funding for an oven, industrial dough mixer, and other crucial supplies. Her bakery business is now thriving.
ISIS drove Basam’s family from Mosul, forcing him to leave his business behind. In Erbil he opened a small sewing shop. With the one-time Small Business Grant from SWIC, Basam purchased a washer, dryer, water heater, and more. Now his laundry and tailoring business is sustainable.
Ninevah Restoration Initiative
In 2003, there were 1.6 million Christians living in Iraq. Today, due to decades of conflict, there are only 165,000 remaining. Most experienced internal displacement, and are only just beginning to restart their lives from scratch. According to the United Nations, the needs of the internally displaced have only increased in recent years with those living in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains (home to the largest Christian population) facing the highest severity of need.
Support Iraqi Christians
It is as Easy as 1, 2, 3
The SWIC Call to Action
- SWIC looks to the long-term and sustainable building of a new, more secure, prosperous, and tolerant country for Iraq’s extraordinarily diverse peoples.
- This is the dream of most Iraqis.
- While SWIC’s focus is on supporting imperiled Christian communities, our commitment is to all of the people of Iraq.
- We will offer friendship and resources without participating in the historic, ongoing, and often bitter rivalries that have beset the region for millennia.
- A new Iraq will depend on all of its groups finding and nurturing a common sense of humanity and national purpose.
- We will never seek to drive out darkness with more darkness, to fight hate with more hate.