Youssif walks along a California beach with CNN's Arwa Damon, who first told the boy's story in 2007.

Editor’s Note: Arwa Damon is a CNN Senior International Correspondent. She has more than a decade of experience in war zones across the Middle East and North Africa region and has often focused her work on humanitarian stories. Damon has received extensive recognition for her work including the International Women’s Media Foundation 2014 Courage in Journalism Award and a 2016 Gracie. The opinions in this article are solely those of the author.

Story highlights

Covering the story of a burned Iraqi boy for CNN prompted Arwa Damon to start a charity

INARA matches children to the medical care they need

Charity has worked with more than 50 war-wounded Syrian refugee children since 2015

CNN  — 

All we knew that day, back in August 2007, was that we had to do something. As journalists, that “something” was to tell his story. Little did we know the impact it would have, or the movement that a little, horribly disfigured, 5-year-old Iraqi boy would inspire.

His name was Youssif. Masked men had doused him in gasoline and set his face on fire when he was in the street right in front of his house. To date, no one knows why.

His father had gone from ministry to ministry, pounded the pavement looking for aid organizations to help and eventually found us. His parents were beyond desperate.

They just wanted their boy back, to see that spark come back to his eyes, to see him smile again.

CNN’s call to action ended up exceeding anything we could have ever imagined. The Children’s Burn Foundation in Los Angeles took up his case and CNN viewers donated hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That support inspired CNN’s Impact Your World initiative, which continues to play a vital role in mobilizing CNN viewers and readers to help change the story. The message is simple: Everyone can make an impact.

For those of us in Iraq, a nation that largely felt abandoned by the rest of the world, the outpouring of support overwhelmed our Iraqi staff.

And for me personally, surrounded by the sheer inexplicable evil that is the war in Iraq, it reminded me that the kindness of strangers exists. That revelation led me to think about starting a non-profit that could tap into that generosity and build the links needed to help cases like that of Youssif.

In our industry, we constantly come across children in dire need of life-saving or life-altering surgeries. Sometimes we can do a story on them and, in some instances, the child receives assistance. Sometimes we can’t. But most of us at one point or another have tapped into our personal networks, pitched in for funds and guided families in the right direction.

Often these families don’t know what organizations exist or how to navigate the system. In other instances, the wounds are so severe and complicated, organizations don’t have the mandate, manpower, funds or time to treat the child.

As the region grew more violent, I found myself as a journalist feeling more and more helpless. Nothing we did, reported or risked was altering the disastrous violence ripping through nations. It was as if we were screaming into a dark void.

CNN's Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon with Sara, whose arm was severely burned by boiling water. Damon's charity INARA paid for surgery to prevent permanent joint damage.
Layla fell into boiling water when a bomb landed on her street and her leg became infected.  INARA helped to remove the infection.
Adnan was shot in the spine and can't move below the waist.  He is now living a more independent life thanks to INARA's assistance.
INARA is helping to reconstruct Fatima's hands after they were damaged in an explosion.

Creating INARA, the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance, became a personal obligation, the only way I knew to do something that would actually make a tangible difference to try to alter the wrongs.

INARA, which means “ray of light” in Arabic, takes on cases that have fallen through the cracks.

We step in to fill the gaps in access to medical treatment, when not provided by other institutions or non-profits. We do not compete with, but complement pre-existing medical facilities and aid organizations. We build partnerships to secure pro bono or reduced costs for care. INARA has dedicated case workers who stay with the beneficiary through the rehabilitation stages, and we are a link to those who want to help our individual cases.

We are small, for now. Our initial operation is based out of Beirut, where we are best positioned to provide immediate care due to our pre-existing network there. We have come this far thanks to our friends and peers and various professionals who have rallied in different ways. With your assistance, we will continue to grow and be able to finance more cases.

Damon with Havin whose hands were burned when rockets landed outside her house in Syria.  Surgeries helped her to fully move her fingers.

I believe that the help we are able to give these children, even if it’s just in the slightest way to somehow alleviate or alter the nightmare they have been through, will have a positive ripple effect. When I last saw Youssif in Los Angeles, he still wanted to be a doctor and help burn victims. One of our INARA cases, Alaa, a teenage girl whose jaw was blown off in Syria, wants to be a nurse. Another, 10-year-old Cedra, who was severely burned in an explosion in Syria, also wants to be a doctor.

In a world where evil appears to be thriving, where it seems that humanity has failed itself, this is our part in trying to bring people together for the sake of the most vulnerable victims of war.

I believe this is our fundamental humanitarian responsibility.