The onset of the Syrian conflict over 21 months ago has been utterly devastating. Thousands of Syrians have been displaced and over 540,000 Syrians are registered refuges in the neighboring countries of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt. Unfortunately the refuge crisis is only getting worse. Bordering countries have seen a huge sudden increase of over 140,000 refuges in just the last six weeks. Furthermore, on Wednesday The UN predicted that if things don’t calm down in Syria and the ugly Civil War does not end soon, the number of Syrian refuges could explode to over 1.1 million by early summer.
As winter blankets Syria and her neighbors, the conditions at the refuge camps are grim. In some camps, women and children represent over 75% of the refugees such as in Zaatari, Jordan, which has 30,000 refugees at the moment. Families are struggling to survive and feed their families, living in tents under the freezing cold conditions with sadly no end of their desperate situation in sight.
Fortunately NGO’s such as World Food Programme (WFP) is there to help. The WFP has worked alongside the UNHCR (The United Nation’s Refugee Arm) to provide a regular supply of food to the families. While UNHCR is distributing such necessary supplies as blankets for fuel and cooking, the WFP has been supplying “dry rations” over the winter months that refugees can cook themselves. The Dry rations include rice, bulgur, wheat, yellow split peas, sugar and salt, which are provided along with a daily allotment of bread.
In the Zaatari refugee camp alone, over 100 communal kitchens have been built that services 30,000 people. The UNHCR is working to build more in order to ensure everyone has access. But the cold, cruel wind of winter is making situations miserable for many.
Meanwhile inside Syria, food insecurity is on the rise due to bread shortages and higher food prices, leaving millions of Syrians in desperate conditions and may lead to more people leaving the country and entering the already over-crowded refuge camps.
It is not a good situation, but you can help. Simply share this video to raise awareness or make a small donation to the World Food Programme that can help feed a family and save a life.
This post was written on behalf of the Global Team of 200. Information above is provided by the WFP as well as research on the web. To learn more about the World Food Programme’s work, click here.
Colonial Williamsburg is renown for its beautiful, traditional Christmas decorations and is a perfect place to take a stroll back in time to admire the wonderful wreaths of the past.
Have you ever thought about the clothes you wear and what kind of statement you are making? Did you know that there are some clothing companies out there in the world that are trying to make a positive difference in people’s lives and change the way people think. Barnabas Clothing is one such company.
Sample of Barnabas casual sportswear. Photo credit: Barnabas Clothing Company.
After five delightful, heavenly days in Santorini it was hard to leave. We had already changed our trip once canceling a two-day visit to neighboring Paros so we could extend our time in Santorini. It was a wise choice as we felt fully rested and relaxed after five days of sunsets and sunrises in perhaps one of the most beautiful islands on earth. Continue reading →
This post is the second piece of a two-part series on the recent Carter Work Project and Habitat for Humanity’s work in Haiti. To read the first post “The Story of How 600 Volunteers Built 100 Homes in a Week” click here.
In lieu of pictures, this video says it all. The commitment, the teamwork, the compassion and the hope that these volunteers have given to people who have lost it all.
Above: “Our Carter Work Project closing ceremonies video celebrates the impact of 100 new homes built in Haiti by more than 600 volunteers alongside families affected by the 2010 earthquake.” Continue reading →
How many times do I have to try to tell you That I’m sorry for the things I’ve done But when I start to try to tell you That’s when you have to tell me Hey, this kind of trouble’s only just begun I tell myself too many times Why don’t you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut That’s why it hurts so bad to hear the words That keep on falling from your mouth Falling from your mouth Falling from your mouth Tell me
Why Why I may be mad I may be blind I may be viciously unkind But I can still read what you’re thinking And I’ve heard it said too many times That you’d be better off Besides
Why can’t you see this boat is sinking Let’s go down to the water’s edge And we can cast away those doubts Some things are better left unsaid
But they still turn me inside out Turning inside out turning inside out Tell me Why Tell me Why This is the book I never read These are the words I never said This is the path I’ll never tread These are the dreams I’ll dream instead This is the joy that’s seldom spread These are the tears
The tears we shed This is the fear This is the dread These are the contents of my head And these are the years that we have spent And this is what they represent And this is how I feel Do you know how I feel? ‘Cause I don’t think you know how I feel I don’t think you know what I feel I don’t think you know what I feel You don’t know what I feel
-Annie Lennox, lyrics “Why”
Residents and members of the media at a vigil in Kauhajoki, Finland, one day after the September 23, 2008 shooting incident. Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons.
Why?
I am utterly heartbroken today by the tragedy that bestowed upon Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. What happened today is unimaginable. It is horrendous. Ugly. Cruel. And uncomprehensible.
As President Obama said holding back tears, there is “not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the overwhelming grief that I do.”
The fact that once again a young man opened fired on children in an elementary school is so sickening that I can hardly hold back my tears.
Can’t our children be safe anymore? Do they have to fear for their lives when they go to the one place they should be safe: School. The movies have already been ruined. The malls as well. Meanwhile schools continue to be hit by the unthinkable.
I don’t understand it.
Our world is becoming so insanely violent, and not only in America. Gratuitous violence is portrayed left and right in movies, on television and 24/7 on CNN. It is spread across the front pages of our newspapers on a daily basis and is found in children’s video games, books and toys. Our children are growing up in an everly increasing violent world, so violent that people are almost becoming immune to violence. It is disheartening and depressing.
You combine our violent world with the fact that in this county any kind of wacko can buy a semiautomatic gun off the internet without skipping a beat, makes my stomach lurch. Gun control is not the only answer but having some legislation in place to slow down the process would certainly help. Why on earth you can easily buy weapons meant to be used in warfare is sick. No one should be able to freely buy these kinds of killing machines.
I worry deeply about a growing problem of hatred and apathy among some young men. The last few mass shootings have all been performed by young, lost souls. The Connecticut school shooter was only 20 years old. The Oregon, shooter a mere 22 years old and described as “numb” before the attack. The Colorado movie theater shooter who was only 25 and clearly a psychopath (how were the red flags in this case ignored?). The Virginia Tech shooter who took out dozens was a college student and then there is Colombine. Sadly, the list continues and never seems to stop. Why these young men kill innocent people and not just kill themselves makes absolutely no rational sense. To kill children, little ones, is even more sickening.
What bothers me immensely is that nothing seems to be getting done to change things and curtail the endless amounts of tragedies. Why aren’t we taking steps to tighten gun control? Why aren’t we putting more functioning systems in place to help deal with mental health issues? And why on earth do we live in a world that celebrates violence in almost everything we do? Why?
Of course I know these are complicated issues and aren’t easily solved. But we can certainly take some steps forward and stop ignoring the issues. It seems like each time a mass shooting happens, it creates a ripple effect on over to the “lunatics” out there who get an “ah ha” moment and copy it. Why not? In their sick heads where violence is glorified and gets plenty of attention (think CNN and Fox News, 24/7 coverage), it just feeds the frenzy.
My heart aches tonight for the parents who lost their young children. I walked into my children’s elementary school this afternoon to pick them up and had to hold back tears. My daughter, so sweet, so precious and innocent is in Kindergarten. Max is in second grade. Even the thought of something this atrocious happening in their school made my stomach ache and my eyes well up with tears. I don’t know how I could ever go on living.
Please say a prayer tonight for the 18 children and the adults who needlessly lost their lives. It is time we did something to end this world of violence.
I’ll leave you with this one quote that I read and it broke my heart. All the kids wanted was to celebrate Christmas. They didn’t want to die.
First grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, 29, locked her 14 students in a class bathroom and listened to “tons of shooting” until police came to help.
“It was horrific,” Roig said. “I thought we were going to die.”
She said that the terrified kids were saying, “I just want Christmas…I don’t want to die. I just want to have Christmas.”
“We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” – Paulo Coelho
Photo credit: Maternity Worldwide
The figures are startling. Every year around the world 287,000 women die in what should be the most joyous time of life: Having a baby. That means one woman dies every 2 minutes or 800 a day, during pregnancy and childbirth.
As a mother of two children who suffered two high-risk births, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be pregnant in a developing nation. It is not surprising that the majority of women (over 56% of the total) who die are in sub-Saharan Africa, a region of the world that is engulfed in extreme poverty. When you compare the mortality rates to women in the Western world, 99% of all deaths take place in the developing world.
In Ethiopia alone, one of the poorest countries in the world, 90% of women give birth at home and for every 100,000 women who give birth in the country, 676 women die from delivery and childbirth complications. Further accentuating the problem in the fact that Ethiopian women, who have little or no access to family planning or contraception, have on average 4.8 babies who survive. These numbers alone put women at high risk of dying and not living to see their babies grow up or raise the others. Continue reading →
Clorox may be mostly know for its fabulous bleach however I bet many people don’t know that this global company is also trying to brighten up the future of America’s children through Clorox’s Power A Bright Future K-12 school grant program.
Lovely Bella Thorne, a teen celebrity and star of Disney’s “Shake it Up” is working with Clorox to help spread the word and encourage votes from parents and teens in the Power A Bright Future program. Bella is working closely with Clorox to make sure that K-12 schools can receive funds for programs that encourage students to be creative, active and tech and science savvy.
Bella Thorne. Photo Credit: Cloxox Power Bright
That’s why for the program’s fourth year, Clorox will award seven grants totaling $200,000 to help fund new or existing school programs.
This week, Jennifer James, the founder of Global Team of 200, who I’m honored to write for, is on the ground in Ethiopia learning all about the issues Frontline Health Care Workers face in one of the poorest countries of the world. Jennifer is in Ethiopia along with three distinguished US nurses on behalf of Save the Children. Back in September, I had written a post about Save the Children’s campaign “Every Beat Matters” (to read post, click here). I was extremely touched by this campaign and what Save the Children is doing to help save lives. Jennifer published her first account of day one in Ethiopia today on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s blog “Impatient Optimists“. I asked Jennifer if I could share her story here as well and she was thrilled.
A woman has her child vaccinated by a Health Extension Work at the Germana Health Post in Ethiopia. Photo credit: Impatient Optimists
I am honored to be writing a two part series on behalf of Habitat for Humanity. Recently 600 volunteers from around the world set off to Haiti as part of the Carter Work Project for the second year in a row with the goal of building 100 homes in a week. Here is their story.
“Men anpil, chay pa lou.”
Many hands [make] the load lighter.
-Haitian proverb
In 1984, President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn created the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project in response to the basic need of simple, decent and affordable shelter for people around the world. For 29 consecutive Mr. and Mrs. Carter have volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for one week building homes and hope in over 14 countries. Past missions have brought people together to build homes as close as Mexico and Canada and as far away as South Africa and the Philippines. It has been an amazing feat and even more impressive given the fact that Carter and his wife Rosalynn, who are both in their mid-eighties, are right there with the volunteers on the ground, pouring in their heart, sweat and soul, in every project.
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Ok…I said I was done posting but what can I do? Nature has serendipitously dropped a brilliant white wet snowstorm on us and it is magical outside. After gearing up the kids and putting on my snowshoes, I headed to my lovely lake and snapped away. It was utterly breathtaking outside.
We spent the rest of the afternoon reliving my youth by sledding down our neighborhood hill and throwing snowballs. It was a delightful day!
This post is in response to the work I’m doing on behalf of Global Team of 200. 1000 Shillings has provided us with the content and images below that are used in this post. For more information on 1000 Shillings, please click here.
1000 Shillings is a Uganda-based organization that helps impoverished mothers earn a living through their small business by selling limited-edition paper bead jewelry. The unique name for the company is quite symbolic as it is the amount of money that they average woman in the Namatala slum lives on per day – approximately 1,000 Ugandan Shillings ($.40).
