Thinking and Grieving for the World!

Last night I was reading Stones Into Schools and thinking, that many of us in the US myself, included have no idea of what life is like in the rest of the world. One of the main passages I was reading was about the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and the devastation that it caused. I thought about that, coupled with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now the current conditions in Mali, Nigeria, Myanmar and the tragedy in Bangladesh and felt like crying for the world!  This afternoon's read at Al Jazeera where the:

UN says Somalia famine killed nearly 260,000

Almost 260,000 people, half of them young children, died of hunger during the last famine in Somalia, according to a UN report that admits the world body should have done more to prevent the tragedy.

The toll is much higher than was feared at the time of the 2010-2012 food crisis in the troubled Horn of Africa country and also exceeds the 220,000 who starved to death in a 1992 famine, according to the findings.

"The report confirms we should have done more before the famine was declared," said Philippe Lazzarini, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

"Warnings that began as far back as the drought in 2010 did not trigger sufficient early action," he said in a statement.

Half of those who died were children under five, according to the joint report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

"Famine and severe food insecurity in Somalia claimed the lives of about 258,000 people between October 2010 and April 2012, including 133,000 children under five," said the report, the first scientific estimate of how many people died. Continue Reading

That just added to my grief. After reading the above, I googled the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and was led to the site  Tzu Chi.org where I read about the 2005 Pakistan Earthquake

A major earthquake shook Pakistan on Saturday, October 8, 2005, at 8:50 a.m. The epicenter of this magnitude 7.6 quake was about 65 miles north-northeast of Islamabad, the country’s capital. At least 86,000 people were killed, more than 69,000 were injured, and extensive damage resulted in northern Pakistan. The heaviest damage occurred in the Muzaffarabad area of Kashmir.

Some students had no sooner arrived at their schools than they were buried alive under collapsed buildings. Some survivors tried to seek help only to find that the roads to the outside world had been blocked by landslides. They were isolated by the high mountains of that area.

Three million people lost their homes. With winter looming, the survivors had to face the even more daunting challenge of surviving in the bitterly cold mountains without the protection of their homes. “I may be lucky to have survived the tremor, but I know I’ll die of starvation or the freezing weather,” lamented one helpless villager Read More

Read that again  Three million people lost their homes, if add the drone attacks on-going in Pakistan you just feel so badly for the people. But when I was a Tzu Chi I saw this article and read about the help that the organization gave to the victims of Hurricane Sandy, the Boston Bombing and West Texas victims and I say thank you Tzu Chi!

White House Honors Tzu Chi as Champions of Change

On April 24, the White House honored the Tzu Chi Foundation as Hurricane Sandy “Champions of Change. The Champions event highlighted people and organizations directly involved in response and recovery efforts following Hurricane Sandy.

 Six members from the American branches of the foundation went to Washington for the ceremony, to receive it under the White House’s ‘Champions of Change’ program.

After the hurricane, more than 4,000 Tzu Chi volunteers distributed hot meals, blankets and emergency cash debit cards worth nearly US$10 million to 18,000 households, helping more than 60,000 people in New York and New Jersey. In April this year, volunteers provided similar cash cards to those affected by the explosion of the Waco fertilizer plant in Texas and gave love and concern to the runners of the Boston marathon and their families after the bomb explosion..... 

“Dharma Master Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun from Taiwan, founded the Tzu Chi Foundation in 1966. It is an international humanitarian, non-profit organization that aspires to help the needy with love and inspire compassion in the wealthy. Tzu Chi, which means ‘compassion and relief’ in Chinese Mandarin, has over 10 million supporters worldwide and carries out its work through the four major missions of charity, medicine, education and humanistic culture and related fields such as community volunteerism, environmental protection and international disaster relief,” the official said.  Read More

Over the last few weeks, I have tried to highlight the events around the globe that we may not notice as we go through our daily lives and I am trying to force myself to think about them and try to think of ways to help maybe support of organizations like Tzu Chi is one way!! I would like to hear from anyone any where about the above events!