I’m going to keep this one brief….
Raise your hand if you’re appalled at the situation in Syria. Everyone’s hands are up? Good.
This situation, particularly the dire, dire plight of refugees and Syrian citizens, has gone on for far too long. All reports out of Aleppo are beyond horrifying, and we must do everything we can to help those suffering there. It should never have taken things reaching this point for the Western world to wake up, but here we are: let’s do something to fix it.
It can be really, truly overwhelming to try to figure out where to donate for worldwide crises. How do you know the money is being well used, or going at all towards the people you’re trying to help? How do you choose between dozens of worthy organizations, each of which seems to need funding more than the last?
In this situation, I’ll make the choice easy for you: donate to the White Helmets.
This extraordinary organization sends citizen volunteers – CITIZEN VOLUNTEERS – into the most dangerous situations imaginable to help those who are the most threatened, literally. A chief role they have played in Syria to-date is helping to uncover those who are buried alive in the rubble left after serious bombing, which happens devastatingly often (see the trailer above for the short about this group that is currently featured on Netflix. I promise, it’s worth watching).
So for the sake of our fellow humans, for those who are suffering, for those who we have the defined obligation to help as much as we are able: please, please donate to the White Helmets. Consider it your good karma for 2017.