I promised I’d
HAUNTED BY TERRIBLE STORIES, TOM HOLLAND IS WALKING ACROSS LONDON TO HELP IRAQ’S YAZIDIS
TOM Holland is sat in a tent in Northern Iraq, talking to a fellow dad. It’s 2016 and ISIS have pulled back from the area, but their presence still feels very close.
This particular Iraqi man is a father of four, and all of his children were kidnapped by ISIS soldiers at some stage.
His wife sits behind a screen of fabric in a refugee camp, banging her head on the concrete and wailing. She has brain damage as a result of being shot in the head when she too was abducted, but her rapist and captor got bored of her and decided he had enough.
The married couple were reunited, but she will never be the same woman, wife or mother as before. The family’s horrific fate was decided by a simple fact. They are Yazidis, a religious group targeted by ISIS who perpetrated a genocide which is already slipping into the past.
When Tom heard their story and said he would bring it the West, he promised people would listen.
The man had less faith.
“He said, I don’t think so,” Tom told the Gazette, “because there are Christians in England. And so they will worry about the Christians in Iraq. “And there are Muslims in England, so they will worry about the Muslims in Iraq, but there is no us, there are no Yazidis, nobody will care about us. And the awful thing is that, in a sense, that’s true.
“They’re not on everybody’s lips and their sufferings, their ongoing traumas, are not part of the kind of national conversation in the way that perhaps atrocities in other parts of the world are.”
Tom is trying to change that. To be more specific, he’s trying to change it by walking from one side of London to the other in one day on Friday.
The 40-mile journey takes from sun up to dusk, starting at 5am.
Tom has raised more than £22,000 as a result of the sponsored walk so far and has received support from big names such as Olivia Colman, Brian Cox, Gary Lineker and Al Murray, who is a close friend.
He intended to raise £25,000 over the course of a year, but has come close to that target within a couple of weeks.
“We’ve had amazing support, amazing support,” he aded. “
We’re so grateful to everyone who has contributed.”
The fundraiser is taking place now as a result of Tom’s tenure at his
It’s just fabulous, how much we’ve raised is beyond our wildest dreams.
Tom Holland
cricket club. Every player gets to host a benefit after 10 years of residency at the club, typically to help them retire comfortably.
But Tom has decided to give this money to three homeless charities, including one specifically dedicated to helping Yazidi families who were displaced from their homes when ISIS invaded in 2014.
He prepared for his arduous journey by going on regular, long walks.