365 True Things: 222/Helping

Last night on FB, I posted a link to a NYT story about the number of refugees worldwide and remarked:

Sixty million people displaced by war and persecution. That's roughly the population of the whole world about 3,000 years ago. Which blows my mind: that there were that many people on earth so long ago. Still, it pales compared to the 7 billion and growing of today.

But back to the 60 million: why can't we all take better care of one another? Why can't there be more equity across the board?

I very often think that most of us don't give enough thought to the fact that we are all here for but the briefest instance.

Snap! We're gone.

Why not share more, embrace humanity more? We're all in this together, for this one brief moment.

No one disagreed with me, but one friend—whom I can rely on to have a strong (and usually right, as in correct) opinion about pretty much anything—commented: "survival genetics, my DNA over your DNA, we just cant seem to get past that. hardwired in i guess."

True enough—and a conversation ensued about cynicism. Because yes, it is very easy to get cynical and embrace ironic distance when it comes to all the problems in this vexing world. After all, what can we do about the refugee crisis, or poverty, or discrimination, or hate crimes, or the vanishing polar bears, or what have you? 

Well, one thing we can do is give some cash to organizations that are in the trenches fighting the good fight. I made this observation back in June after the killing of Cecil the lion. I won't say it's more important to help people in need, because I honestly don't believe that. What I do believe is that there are way too many of us on this planet, greed is rampant, and the earth and its nonhuman inhabitants suffer horribly because of our arrogance and neediness and destructiveness. But I do believe that many, many—tens of millions, it seems—of people are stuck betwixt and between. And I think they deserve a helping hand.

So today I've researched a few organizations that you might consider donating to. For example:

The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR
UNICEF
Médecins sans frontières/Doctors without Borders 
OXFAM 
International Red Cross
Save the Children

And here are a couple of articles with links to groups addressing the Syrian crisis specifically:

Five Practical Ways You Can Help Refugees Trying to Find Safety in Europe (with six organizations listed for each "practical way")  
1. Make a donation
2. Get involved with grassroots groups
3. Volunteer, donate, collect
4. Buy specific items for those who need help
5. Put your name to a petition 

How to Help Syrian Refugees? These Six Groups You May Not Know Are Doing Important Work
Six groups, and then some. 

There are so many people out there doing good work, helping people, helping vanishing species, helping the planet. Go find one and support it. Now. Please.