An Interview with Brooklyn Penn, of Preemptive Love

Brooklyn Penn

Brooklyn Penn is the Community & Donor Engagement Manager at Preemptive Love. She has been working with Preemptive Love for two years. Before getting to know the Preemptive Love community, Brooklyn worked with an immigrant rights advocacy organization assisting citizenship and DACA applicants in Nashville. She also fundraised and ran communications for a refugee resettlement agency in her home of Indianapolis. She is dedicated to working alongside refugee families as they rebuild after war. Brooklyn is always available to meet others looking to learn more about how they can show up with refugee communities globally and locally.

Describe the mission and vision of Preemptive Love. 

The mission of Preemptive Love is to end war by bringing online tools offline to create the most diverse group of peacemakers on the planet. We bring relief and create jobs to refugee communities in the world's most violent regions. At our heart, we're peacemakers. We work with communities at odds. Every meal, every liter of water, every new job is a chance to demonstrate a different type of love. A love that can unmake violence. We actively work in Iraq, Syria, and Mexico.

Can you give us an update in regards to what's happening in Syria?

The White House announced the US would pull troops out of Syria in early October. Then, Turkey's prime minister Erdogan announced he would create a safe zone in Syria where he planned to deport Kurdish refugees back to Northeastern Syria. Turkey began its offensive, at first displacing as many as 300,000 people. Even when a ceasefire deal was made, Turkey was still sending airstrikes and bombing this region. Families had no option but to run. Now thousands are still displaced. 

We're showing up with hot meals and medical care in Syria. Preemptive Love has served over 6,000 patients so far in mobile medical units, treating everything from primary health care needs to a traumatic injury from shrapnel and gun wounds. We're also bringing ready to eat meals on the ground for families on the go. These ready to eat meal packs are being delivered in 37 abandoned schools, where people are taking shelter. As winter approaches, we're also bringing families bedrolls that will insulate them and protect them from sleeping in unheated, abandoned buildings this winter. 

How about Iraq? What's happening there?

In Iraq, people are currently protesting a lack of basic necessities like access to electricity and clean water. Many are unemployed and are looking for jobs and are tired of corruption. Hundreds have died in these protests and many more are being injured. 

We have been working in Iraq for years. We developed a tech training hub center with seven locations in Iraq. Here, students gain access to the online workforce immediately, take English classes, and gain professional skills to make them marketable to other employers in Iraq. We also start businesses with one-time grants in Iraq. Refugees and displaced people start businesses such as bakeries, salons, shops, clothing stores. Additionally, we have a large presence working in the health care sector in Iraq. 

How has Preemptive Love developed since its formation?

Preemptive Love has definitely had quite the transformation process since the beginning. It unofficially began when founders Jeremy and Jessica Courtney moved to Iraq at the height of war, in the middle of a US troop surge. It all began when a man approached Jeremy in a hotel room with a young girl's medical case. She had heart defects. This man begged Jeremy for help and access to surgeons, because at the time, it was not available in the country. Jeremy began working with this man to help this girl, and they soon to discover that the heart defects were not a one-off case. Many believe children had heart-defects as result of the use of chemical weapons. So then, heart-surgeries were Preemptive Love's man focus. From 2008 to 2015, Preemptive Love provided lifesaving care for nearly 2,400 children in Iraq, and nearly 3,400 children worldwide. 

But with the rise of ISIS in 2014, the founding team in that moment decided whether they would stay in the country or go. They stayed. Our work as a relief organization began then. We showed up to serve over 200,000 people to the frontlines of conflicts like Mosul and Fallujah. 

Now, Preemptive Love has expanded from bringing help fast, to also bringing help that lasts. We will stay in Iraq and Syria until families have what they need to flourish. And now in 2019, we've expanded our work to Mexico to serve migrants fleeing the most violent region in the world not in an active state of war. 

Where's the most urgent need?

The nature of our work means everything is urgent. Our first request to everyone is to give, either to generally support all of our work on a monthly basis. Monthly donations are what allow us to plan programming responsibly. 

If you're looking to support something in specific families are starving in Syria. Without your help, they will not have access to food, medical care, or winter gear. 

Our newest need that we desperately need help kicking off the ground is our tech bus in Juarez, Mexico. Migrants there are stuck. They had hoped to seek asylum in the US, but most will never be accepted. Violence and kidnappings are a real danger in Juarez. Many fear leaving for work. We're purchasing a bus that will offer tech training, English classes, real income from the online workforce, childcare, and virtual legal assistance. The bus will travel from shelter to shelter, so families do not have to risk being killed when going to work. 

If people are unable to donate, word of mouth is a free and powerful tool to help friends and family get involved with our work. We love it when people share our stories both on social media and over the dinner table! 

Is there anything else you'd like to mention?

I am so honored to work at Preemptive Love. I'm so proud of our teams on the ground who are willing to risk everything to save lives. Although the images of war are hard to shake, and at times it feels like there's no way I could possibly make an impact, we see our community moving the needle.

Farmers like Selah win awards for having the highest quality farm in all of Syria, despite fighting in a nearby region.

Quadruplets are born in Syria in our mobile medical hospitainer NATURALLY by a strong momma.

Graduate Gufan just scored a job as a data analyst in Iraq making over $800/month in Iraq (excellent pay in Iraq).

Babies finally have access to vaccines in a reproductive health center in a village in Iraq! 

Stories like these fuel my fire to keep believing in a world where we all rise together. My final words to people are to pay close attention to what's going on in the world, but don't let fear have the last word. We have the agency to unmake violence. We can return power to refugees who are forced to flee and help people rebuild. 

To make a donation to Preemptive Love Coalition, or learn more, click here.