Hope - In a world where daily headlines bring news of hate, discrimination, and pain where do we look to find hope? TheSocial Good Summit was two days of nonstop speakers and panels highlighting social media's impact on social good initiatives around the world. The theme: Connecting Today. Creating Tomorrow. centers around the question “What type of world do I want to live in by the year 2030?” It was energizing, encouraging, and empowering. The following quotes from #2030Now are linked with amazing opportunities to make this a better world today. May you find something more to give you hope.
Many times the world's issues can seem overwhelming and impossible to solve. A common thread running through today's Social Good Summit (#2030Now) was an invitation to the general public to take an active part in achieving the Global Goals. Don't remember what those are? Read more here .
So what can you do? Here are six ideas shared today.
1. Richard Curtis started the day asking everyone to tweet a pledge to make the #globalgoals a reality and tag one person to do the same. He shared a global goals toolkit to make it easier to share the goals in your social media space. Others today reinforced that social media is our entrance to awareness and the first step to on the ground action.
2. Chelsea Handler encouraged you to be willing to learn and willing to have your opinion change. She went on to say that it's a waste of time to be a passerby. You won't leave an impression and you're not making an impression. If you have a soapbox, stand on it and scream! Right now she wants you to Rock the Vote.
3. Here's a three for one. The Google Social Good Team developed an app One Today to give "philanthrateens" and other socially minded friends an accessible and affordable way to make a difference. As part of today's launch they gave audience members $17 to donate on the app. From time to time they also change the 'I'm feeling lucky' engine search to 'I'm feeling generous' to fund specific crises. And last but not least, through YouTube for Good they have developed an embedded linking system to make donations to nonprofits easier and Google covers the credit card fees related to donations.
4. GSMA, The United Nations, And Project Everyone collaborated to launch the SDG in Action app, which shares information on the Global Goals, offers local actions you can be a part of, or you can create your own actions and invite others to join you.
5. In the #BlackLivesMatter panelist Luvvie Ajayi asked white allies to to become white accomplices by witnessing black/police interactions and by donating to organizations that are doing the work to change our systems.
6. And for those of you with a story to tell, David Nabarro invited anyone to create a 3-5 minute video describing some of the immediate problems and solutions relevant to the Global Goals in your community. This collaboration platform will build connections between civil society and governments.
I'm here to share a story - Yes ANOTHER story, because I hope and I pray that this can make another person's struggle real enough for political leaders and powerful advocates to bring about coordinated change and make our world more human.
Last Friday the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) sponsored a special event with the overarching theme One Humanity to call recognition to World Humanitarian Day. Held in the UN General Assembly with a star studded lineup including Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones), Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton), Alisan Porter (The Voice), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (author Americanah), Yasmine Al Massri and Mohammad Assaf (actress and singer), the evening promised an entertaining program guaranteed to bring high profile recognition.
Yet with all this star power, at the center of this program was the heartfelt story of a Syrian refugee family. Hala Kamil is the mother of 4 children, Sara, Farah, Mohammed, and Helen, ages 7-15 years old. The account of their transition from surviving in Allepo as freedom fighters to seeking refugee status in Turkey to settlement in Germany is told in the Frontline report Children of Syria. I watched the entire episode early last week. The excerpts shared Friday were well selected but couldn't cover each moment that touched me earlier.
As an advocate, educator, and mother, my heart wrenched as Farah flinched at the sound of missile fire, Sara told about collecting red ribbons to help her father make bombs, Mohammed said goodbye to his neighborhood, and Helen refused to cover her hair in her new German home.
As a woman and wife I shed tears as Hala made the difficult decision to leave Syria for her children's future, and explained why her phone with pictures of her husband (taken by ISIS and presumed dead) and her life in Syria, had become her life.
On this evening in New York, in a country far removed from the horrors her family faced, Hala took another courageous step, to beseech the leaders of our world to take action to end the attack on civilians in Syria.
Here are three points that called to me:
Two hundred seventy-five thousand men, women and children are under siege, and two million are living in fear of besiegement. They cry out, but they are met with silence. The world does not hear them. Instead, the world hears the echoes of gunshots and explosions, tormented by images of knife-wielding terrorists killing in the name of Islam. Well, not in our name. Not in my name.
I do not agree with those out there who say that there are two worlds—one for the political decision-makers, and one for those who bear the consequences of their decisions. We who suffer those consequences must have some bearings on the actions, or lack of action, of the powerful.
Make your voices heard. I call upon you not to give up and not to regard us as helpless victims being ushered by the powers of destiny alone forever deprived of self-determination. We may have lost our homes, but we have not lost our ability to change this world, for it is the only world we have.
You can watch her complete speech here:
And on this evening, her children joined her onstage for a standing ovation. A standing ovation for the terrors of their life, for their struggle, for their pain, and for their future. They stood awkwardly, seeking out each other's gaze and shifting their feet. How is a child supposed to respond when their story is there for the world to see? I was uncomfortable with them.
There are over 60 Million refugees in the world. Every minute 24 people are displaced and half of them are children. These astronomical numbers are hard to fathom which may be why nations aren't fulfilling their quota commitments to accept refugees and why there seems to be a stalemate on efforts to prevent, negotiate, and end the crises that are the cause.
But while these astronomical numbers are hard to fathom, it is even harder to accept that these are 24 lives, 24 stories, 24 futures at stake. EVERY. MINUTE.
So today I'm here to share a story. May this one be the call for action locally and globally that rewrites the future for our world.
Something More YOU can do today:
Tweet your world leaders demanding action in crisis #sharehumanity
