Haiti Hoopla

My University is having many fundraisers to donate to relief teams working in Haiti as are many other schools and organizations. Don't get me wrong, I think it's good and it's needed. My problem is a lot of people only put this much effort in when a problem is huge and the media is involved. Why not help all the time? Why not donate whenever you can and not just when you're asked? Why don't people react like this to help prevent Child Soldiers? How about all the violence that goes in DRC? And there's  the law that Uganda has passed that makes homosexuality illeagal and punishable with death. How many people know that more than 60,000 Somalis were displaced in 2010? I could go on and on forever but I doubt it would do anything. A lot of people will only see what the media chooses to show them and they are blind to the rest of the conflicts.
That being said, this kind of situation is exactly why I am doing what I am doing. With my BA in International Relations I can get a job with a Humanitarian Organization and then I can be the one arranging for relief teams to go to places in need. I wish I loved science enough to be a doctor, I wish I was strong enough to become a  construction worker, I wish I could do more.

I dare you to choose a website (suggestions below) and subscribe to their newsletter, I can guarentee you'll read about things you didn't know were going on.

War Child
United National International Children's Education Fund
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Doctors without Borders
Not for Sale
Central Asia Institute

I need to be bold

Need to jump in the cold

--Joshua Radin

Ignorance is bliss?

The other day I got in to an argument with some friends about modern slavery. They denied the existence and said sex slaves do not count. There are currently 27 million slaves, and how do sex slaves not count?

Being as interested in the world as I am, the fact that there still is slavery is well known to me and many of my friends. However, not everyone knows about it which leads me to wonder about the old saying ignorance is bliss. Are the people who deny slavery happier? Does the world appear a pretty place if sex slaves are not real slaves? I can't really answer that, since i'm not ignorant about it. I don't know if anyone would really answer that question.

Another thing that really bothers me is when people admit there is still slavery but don't admit it is in their country. Slavery is a thing for underdeveloped country, third world countries and not countries with a well established justice system. The truth is that there are slaves everywhere, right under our noses. Diplomats will bring youth back to their home country, when their visa expires they do not get them a new one which leaves the youth under blackmail. They do not get paid and yet they can not go to the police because they are now in the country illegally.

This ignorance is bliss, does not only go for slavery, there are so many things out there in the world that people deny are happening. But does this denial accomplish anything? No, awareness needs to be raised for these issues. How can we stop something from happening when people won't admit it is happening?

The Abolitionist Hymn

We ask not that the slave should lie
As lies his master, at his ease,
Beneath a silken canopy
Or in the shade of blooming trees.

We ask not "eye for eye," that all
Who forge the chain and ply the whip
Should feel their torture, while the thrall
Should wield the scourge of mastership.

We mourn not that the man should toil;
'Tis nature's need, 'tis God's decree;
But let the hand that tills the soil
Be, like the wind that fans it, free.

Facts: www.un.org