Wednesday, August 10, 2011

An Appeal


Smart Ass Bride in her recent post highlighted an urgent need. I am replicating her post below:
The UN needs 1.6 billion USD to save the lives of famine stricken Somalian refugees, especially the women and children. So far, they have been able to collect only half that amount.
Image credit : thehindu.com
Here is Ban Ki Moon’s appeal to the world’s people – it includes me and you.
This is a wake-up call we cannot ignore. Everyday, I hear the most harrowing reports from our U.N. teams on the ground: Somali refugees, their cattle and goats dead from thirst, walking for weeks to find help in Kenya and Ethiopia; orphans who arrive alone, their parents dead, terrified and malnourished in a foreign land…
..That is why I reach out today — to focus global attention on this crisis, to sound the alarm and call on the world’s people to help Somalia in this moment of greatest need. To save the lives of the people at risk — the vast majority of them women and children — we need approximately $1.6 billion in aid. So far, international donors have given only half that amount. To turn the tide, to offer hope in the name of our common humanity, we must mobilise worldwide.
Let us *please* awaken to the fact that we can do more than sparing a thought for them. The horror the images invoke in us needn’t be a one moment thing. We *can* do something here. We are not powerless to watch and let this go. My dollars and yours matter – Please do donate.
With as less as 7$, we will be able to provide a malnourished refugee child with ready-to-use therapeutic food. For 100$ we will be able to give someone a survival kit. These are not staggering figures, this is money we can spare – we don’t have to wait for our governments to donate.
You can donate online at the UNHCR website. You have the option of making a monthly gift or a single gift. I was able to make the payment successfully through the global portal for directly donating to the UNHCR. If you live in Australia/Canada/HK/US/China, you’ll also be able to donate through your national offices
Sometimes, cynicism / plain apathy overtakes us at these moments and makes us feel that there are people dying in our own country, that this might be beyond us, that the agency’s implementation and rescue efforts might not be flawless etc. That doesn’t preempt us from doing out bit. Nor will our arguments help that baby in the picture.
We feel helpless many times, when we are actually powerless to do anything but seethe and let it pass. This is **not** that time. We are not going to travel and deliver help directly, but we are empowered just the same.
Please spread the word on Facebook and your blogs. And do leave a line if you donate. It wouldn’t be boasting if it inspires another person to do the same! So much of our lives are laid open for all to see – in blogs, in Facebook posts. Why hide the best of us, especially when it can make a difference?
If you do not have a Visa/ Mastercard and would still like to donate, I can do it for you instead and forward the receipt to you. Please do leave a line in the comments section or drop a line at ramyachatter AT gmail DOT com.
I can’t help thinking that it could have been me or my family. Thank you for taking time to read the appeal.

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