Linsey Godfrey Instagram – Repost from @arwacnn
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***PLEASE READ***
I am more grateful than ever to all of you who have donated to my charity INARA over the years. Those of you for whom color, religion, geography did not matter. Those of you who saw the child in need.
Faten was burned in 2013 when she was just five years old, from an airstrike. Over the years, neither she nor her parents wanted to stop her education, but when she was younger it was extremely hard on her. The words and stares of others cut deeply. Now that she’s older she can stand up for herself, she’s built up those internal defenses against rhetoric and glares. If only she had had the support she needed from the start. If only there was a reaction to what her country was going through that was more powerful, more decisive than the little that actually transpired when it came to Syria.
The response to Ukraine has shown that we can mobilize clothes, transport, food, and warm shelter to those fleeing war. It has shown that there is money, whether from the stranger moved by events or governments. It has shown that harsher measures can be put into place to punish the aggressors. And yes it has shown the West’s bias towards who it is that is fleeing or being bombed.
What if we/the West had reacted like this to Assad and Putin’s bombings in Syria? Would Putin have been so emboldened as to invade Ukraine?
What if we had shown this level of kindness and compassion for those fleeing? Would children like Faten have suffered less?
It is perhaps easy to say “what if”, and to a certain degree pointless. What has happened has happened.
I am heartened by the response to Ukraine because it shows what we are capable of. I am gutted because it underscores an ugly reality. We are more inclined to help those who we “think” or “perceive” to be more like us.
The children of one conflict do not have to suffer at the expense of the children of another.
So lets build a world where we don’t have to plead for the finances to support non-white, non-European children. Lets build a world where ALL children are provided the chance to chart a better future.
Link in bio to donate to our Ramadan campaign
#childreninneed | Posted on 05/Apr/2022 04:42:20
