I wonder, are there any more desperate, vulnerable or at risk people in the world just now than those who risk all that is left, leaving behind vast piles of rubble that used to be their cities and their homes, with the haunting images of their most loved family members, even children, dead in the settled dust. Take a look at the photograph of just one street in a Syrian town! What would you do? Where would you go for your children to be safe?
It has indeed been difficult for people to know what to do but the feeling of “we must do something” has been strong for many. A number of people have asked if PovertySwap has partners who are able to help those suffering. We have the honour of personally knowing amazing people all over the world and a number, like our friend pictured below in Athens helping children and distraught people on the move, have already been to refugee camps in the Middle East and a number of flashpoints where desperate families find themselves. We have friends who are even receiving multiple traumatised families into their own homes.
Within our own extended family we have family members who live in Athens and they have spoken movingly and with deep sorrow at witnessing the fragility of small children arriving there with nowhere to go. Sometimes even small children with no-one to care for them on the journey. Were we to see them at our bus-station or post-office what would we do? This Christmas, PovertySwap wants to be a channel to facilitate that “do something” prayer that is in many of us.
We have opened our Children’s Christmas Appeal Fund with our promise that 100% of all donations will go directly to our partners, people we know personally, for the benefit of these most desperate of children. Choked by the emotion that overwhelms them as they recall to mind their experiences of meeting people face to face our friends tell us the need is great for urgent medical assistance, food, water, shelter, clothing and shoes, tents, sleeping bags and more. Just as vital for people who have perhaps travelled thousands of miles, survived sinking boats while loved ones may have drowned and lived life in constant survival and grief for so many years is the great need for human contact. The need for just one friend in a dark night, someone who cares, someone to talk to, to be able to relate their story, someone to cry with and someone to hug, even someone who can make those little broken hearted ones laugh.
We are confident that PovertySwap donations this Christmas will help to ease suffering and supply help, healing and hope along the way. In essence we can be the vital hands of the Good Samaritan on the dangerous road, without whom the beaten man would undoubtedly have died. Would you help us to do that? We would ask only that please, this year, be especially generous. Go an extra mile. Give an extra gift. Do what you truly can. Desperate children require our desperate giving. We, and they, shall be incredibly grateful. Donate Now. Thank You.
