The reason I chose to direct people towards charities for Darfur is that it's so understated. People hardly know about it and it's one of the worst humanitarian crises ever.
I can only imagine that distance is the reason for this, and that's a shit reason. We are a global community now. More than half of the people reading this live in a different country to me. And yet the newspapers, the television channels... the media at large are so focused on their own countries, they fail to see the importance of a real crisis.
A missing child in England could cause headlines for months, the latest British soldiers to die in Iraq or Afghanistan make the news at least a couple of times a week... But I can't remember the last time I saw anything in the mainstream media about Darfur, where around 300,000 people have died since 2003 and 2,500,000 are missing. Imagine if they were British people, or American, or anything that wasn't half a world away. It's unthinkable. But would that be any different to what's actually happening?
So they speak a different language and they live further away from you... Your home is only your home through chance. You were born somewhere, maybe you're still there or maybe opportunities arose that lead you elsewhere, but it's nothing more than chance that you were brought into an easier, more comfortable part of the world. A place where you can watch TV, worry about the economy, read John Green books, get stressed about having the family over for Christmas and turn on a tap to get a drink of water rather than walk seven miles to a source so dirty that you or I wouldn't give it to a pet.
What's happening in Darfur is death. Death on a massive scale. A scale that British history hasn't seen since WW2, and if you consider those missing and that the conflict is ongoing I can't see that number (about 450,000 according to wiki) not being topped.
So that's why I promoted charities for Darfur.
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5 comments:
I completely agree.
I've only heard about Darfur here and there, but enough to know that somthing must be done.
To be honest, I couldn't even tell you where Darfur is (I'm thinking Africa. Don't laugh at me if I'm wrong). This certainly deserves more attention than it's getting, and more people need to do somthing to help it.
I'm glad that since I couldn't make my own video for charity, that at least I could be a part of this one, even if it is a 10 second clip.
I think that Darfur is a great charity. Our school supports this one along with Sierra Leone.
It's terrible that people care less about human beings in other countries merely for the fact that they live in another country.
Never give up.
DFTBA Dave.
-cameron
I agree that what's going on in Darfur is grossly under-reported. I live in the U.S. and Darfur is never in mainstream news. I found out about it a couple of years ago because a club at my high school was raising money to help Darfur.
I couldn't agree more. Darfur is incredibly downplayed. I've been involved for about a year, and I hate how ignorant people are. I'll be wearing a shirt that says "Save Darfur" and people will be like "Darfur... that's far away, they'll save themselves"
Grrr. Stupid people. Thank you for all that you're doing!
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