Minnesota Children Exchange Letters — and Hope — with Iraqi Children

As an Iraqi-American, Sami Rasouli felt that adults in the two countries “failed to bring peace and stability.” So he and an American friend turned to the children of the two countries to open a dialogue about peace.

With the help of Tim Carlson, a retired teacher who taught English at Robbinsdale schools for 30 years, Rasouli launched “Letters for Peace,” a campaign that helps Iraqi school children to communicate with their Minnesota counterparts.

“The purpose is to create an atmosphere of trust, respect and mutual understanding between young people of the two countries,” said Rasouli in an e-mail from Iraq.

Before returning to Iraq almost four years ago to run his nonprofit organization, Rasouli, 56, owned Sindbad’s, a popular Nicollet Avenue deli for 17 years.

Asil, an Iraqi child, wrote: “I write you, my friend[s] in the United States of America, from the land of Iraq, the wounded country. I write you words full of love and peace so we can be friends. . . .But [I'm] sad because I lost many friends because of violence and war.”

Patrick, a third-grader at Friends School of Minnesota in St. Paul, wrote back: “I read your letters. And I can’t imagine your fear. But remember, through this voice, there’s still hope…”

In addition the St. Paul school, Carlson noted that Minnetonka Middle school and a school in Wayzata have participated in the letter writing campaign.

“It’s getting traction,” he said of the campaign. “More and more schools are calling us from across the nation, but our goal is to have every nation that sent troops to Iraq to participate.”

For adults in both countries, Rasouli said he hopes these letters will be an “awakening factor.”

“School children are innocent by nature,” he said. “They don’t recognize artificial borders between countries. They don’t hate or have animosity.  Iraqi children are writing about their daily suffering under the hard conditions due to the war and ongoing occupation, asking their American counterpart to help them stop the violence and think seriously to rewrite new strategies of relationship between nations.”

International postmaster

Rasouli’s organization, the Muslim Peacemaker Teams, serves as the international postmaster for the project. Carlson collects letters from Minnesota children, folds them into a package, and mails them to an address in Amman, Jordan, where Rasouli retrieves.

Since the mail system in Iraq doesn’t function that well, Rasouli travels to Jordan to mail the responses out to the U.S., or he brings hundreds of letters with him whenever he returns to the Twin Cities for visit.

Carlson, who in 2006 unsuccessfully ran against an incumbent for a state senate seat in district 33, said he compiled the letters into a book, and is planning to raise funds for mass production.

A Democrat and a long time resident of Plymouth, Carlson insists that the project avoids political rhetoric.

“Though it’s hard to be neutral about a passionate issue like [the war in Iraq,] we stay clear of politics-especially knowing that we’ve to deal with kids,” he said.

He and Rasouli said they will also publish the letters in CDs, and distribute them to houses of worship and government officials of both countries.

They pair hopes to have 1 million letters exchanged by the end of the year.