Earlier this week, I woke up to the radio news headlines. I usually don’t pay a great deal of attention to them, but as soon as they said ‘Australia‘ I was listening.
You probably have all heard by now about the bushfires that have claimed the lives of at least 180 people - many are people are still unaccounted for, and many are injured. People have lost literally everything – even some villages have completely disappeared.
Firefighters are still trying to contain some of the fires.
Several of the fires are in places my friends and I drove or trained through while travelling in Australia 2 years ago. Somehow it makes it more real, but it doesn’t make it any easier to imagine what it must have been like for the people who live in Victoria.
As everyone who reads this blog will know, I have a real fondness for the land downunder. I wanted to do something so some of the money I’ve been saving for South Africa, I confess went to the Australian Bushfire appeal.
I also had my heart warmed when I read this article. People who’ve lost so much (maybe also everything) and wanting to share what they are being given with those in great need also. It is that kind of news which gives me hope for humanity.
If you would also like to donate to the appeal to fund the much needed work that Red Cross are doing to help those affected, you can do so by going to the Red Cross websites that have appeals specifically for this purpose:
For whatever it might mean…
on behalf of ‘everyone’ in Oz, Thank You
As of last night here the Australian Red Cross Bushfire Appeal alone had amassed AUS $44 million in private donations (apart from Corporate and Government Aid) Which means on average – every man woman and child in the country had put in $2.00. I have had little to no income for years and still put in 10 times that amount.
Great tragedy brings great generosity here – and elsewhere too, i am glad to see.
love,
<B
You know, it’s sad, if only it didn’t take such horrific events to bring people together and be generous to our ‘neighbours’ in need.
On a different note, flicked over to your blog and did get a giggle from the ‘statistics’ in Queensland. 62% floods 54% drought….interesting!!
Good Point BK
A TV show over here called Q and A raised the same point: A tragedy affects a few thousand people and all Australia (and a lot of the world, as in your case) does amazing things to help them recover and rebuild shattered lives in an overhwelmingly generous display of concern.
And yet every day here there are also thousands of people who have to face individual tragedies almost as great (to their own one-on-one suffering) as this; people who suffer due to underfunding of Mental Health; People who suffer through underfunding of public hospital staff resulting in 6 to 18 month long ‘waiting lists’ for surgical procedures. (i have been told i must wait 7 weeks just to see a specialist in his office for me to give him ‘permission’ for a ‘simple’ examination and then wait up to 9 months for the actual procedure – concerning abdominal pains i started experiencing 4 weeks ago); People who suffer from crimes that are either not reported (like rape) or under-investigated because of underfunding the police force or unpunished because of a legal system that can feel like it blames the victim – or their families – more than the ‘alleged’ perpetrator; all these people live day to day in pain and suffering and few, if any, assistance or thought is offered for them, and certainly nothing like the outpouring that any such ‘great’ tragedy espouses from our communities.
There is no doubt the media has allowed such generosity to be encouraged and demonstrated in this case (or is that ’cause celeb’?)
And that without the media’s assistance those i mentioned will never get the aid from the public or the government to the extent the Victorian families have and will for some time yet.
The question i guess we all need to ask is:
What will i do about it?
I would also point out that one more reason why so much has been offered is because this is a pretty much ‘one-off’ event – like Sept 11 or Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.
We do our best to help like never before when something happens like it has never happened before. It is hard to almost not possible for humans to maintain that sort of level of care and concern 24/7/365.
I don’t know if there is – or could be – any ‘middle ground’?
<B
I guess it’s recognising our limits of we can do. There’s a line in ‘Evan Almighty’ that always sticks my head about how to save the world with ‘one act of random kindness at a time’.
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