Most of us have a fundamental belief that in our hour of pain, aid will come. The child with an earache cries for mama; the wounded soldier calls for a medic. Help me.
We want to respond; it’s basic to our humanity — to help, to heal, to feed, to comfort. To do what we can, whether by bringing water to the thirsty, cleaning wounds, giving blood or writing checks. Disasters large and small can bring out the best in us — we rise to individual acts of heroism and collective acts of charity when we heed that call to service.
This Martin Luther King Day I have three things on my mind: the genius of the great Dr. King, the disaster in Haiti, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I’m wishing right now we had a Martin Luther King, Jr. for this millennium — someone whose words and courage could inspire, persuade and uplift. We‘ll always need that.
The disaster in Haiti is a nightmare of violent death, entrapment, and grievous injury, all exacerbated by an infrastructure that is missing, crushed, or carried away. And because of that, medical care on the island has been jerked rudely backward to the time of the Civil War and before. People are dying of sepsis and dehydration; bloated corpses are putrefying in the heat. Can this really be 2010? Paul Farmer’s organization, Partners in Health will be the lifeline here, with their deep connections in Haiti and excellent command of the best ways to deliver lifesaving medical aid in resource-poor settings.
In the footage and photos from Port-au-Prince, we see and hear the echoes of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. There are many parallels, the heartbreaking images of suffering people being only one of them. Lest we forget: Katrina’s fifth anniversary is this coming summer. Let’ s not be guilty of a short attention span. The “crisis du jour” mentality of charitable giving is powerfully reinforced by on-again/off-again TV coverage, and we need to remember that even as Haiti is in ruins and desperately needs our help, distress did not disappear in New Orleans when the news photographers went home. There’s pluck and hard work afoot in NOLA, but help of many kinds is still needed quite urgently.
The girls’ schools represented by NCGS have made a commitment to the St. Bernard Project. We’ll work together to raise money to build a house for a displaced family, and we’ll do it in time for our annual conference in June, this year in New Orleans at Louise McGehee School. As part of our plan, we want to get every single person who reads this blog to vote for St. Bernard in the Chase Community Giving challenge on Facebook, and to spread the word. Wouldn’t it inspire a great feeling of hope to see the St. Bernard project be awarded a million dollars? It would please the likes of Dr. King. So as we celebrate his birthday, let’s keep his dream alive. We have the power to help make it happen. If you are on Facebook you can vote for five charities. Please use your power to vote for the St. Bernard Project.
Consider how recently it was that New Orleans was getting the hand-wringing news coverage, and think about the courageous and hardworking people who are still in the trenches in the absence of much recognition or praise. Think of them as you read this stanza of Marge Piercy’s poem To Be of Use—
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
And certainly the great Dr. King would agree. In his own words — “Their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom; we cannot walk alone.” Please, we only have through Friday, January 22nd to vote for St. Bernard on Facebook. Do it now while it’s on your mind.
(read the whole poem here)
Tags: call to service, charitable giving, Haiti, Martin Luther King Jr, Partners in Health, St. Bernard Project
I’ll be voting for St. Bernard. Think you for the beautiful poem.
It is profound to me, how we can keep ourselves open to these calls for compassion and empathy. Our culture does so much to smooth it out, minimize and shrink these disruptions. Thank you for this thoughtful reminder. I’ve come to rely on my friends as my cohorts and cotravelers.
I’m sorry that I am not a facebooker so I won’t be voting for St. Bernard, but I have made my own donation to the disaster relief in Haiti today.
Dr. King’s legacy of a call to service has become an annual day of giving to the community. Yesterday I did some volunteer work for a local charity and there were many others joining in, but as this NCGS blog points out, the need is far greater than a single day per year. We, as individuals, need to make this a part of our mindset and we, as a government, need to make this part of our policy.
The crisis in Haiti reminds me of Dr. King’s trenchant comment: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” I have always admired Paul Farmer for his refusal to look away from those in need and to tackle problems directly that others walk away from in despair. He lives Dr. King’s credo and encourages us all to do the same.
Thank you for this inspiring post. We all, in the work that we do, are working toward the harvest. Like Dr. King, and like the NCGS work in New Orleans, we spend our days planting seeds – knowing that we may never personally see the fruits of our labors bloom. And yet, we plant and tend and water and HOPE that our labors will yield a crop of young women who will nuture the future of our communities and of our world. It is the most important work there is, and I am honored to be among people whose constancy of purpose and focus on deep and sustained effort together will transform the fields in which we work, play and live.
Perhaps I am getting more cynical as time marches on, but have you noticed how we seem to be wired as human beings? The more horrific the need, the more we respond? And only if it is continually in front of us?
In the face of such horror in Haiti, the idea of Cruise ships docking on the other side of the island provoked great cognitive dissonance in me. One that seems to be shared by a passenger… “I just can’t see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water,” one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum. But others seemed determined to enjoy their holiday.”I’ll be there on Tuesday and I plan on enjoying my zip line excursion as well as the time on the beach,” said one.
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See link: Cruise ships still find a Haitian berth
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/cruise-ships-haiti-earthquake
I must say it did help appease sense of ethics when I learned that the ships are bringing in over 130 pallets of food and one cruise line is donating $1million, and clearly, shutting down that economy is not an answer…hence my conflict.
I agree, when the cameras go home, we need to remember. When the marketing goals of media outlets diverge from what is really needed, we need to remember. Facebook efforts like the St Bernards Project have a chance to circumvent the media machine and our failings because we are creatures of connection. It keeps what matters alive right in front of us.
We need to fight our short attention span and our dualist coping mechanisms and yes, we need to remember and act with that valiant humanity that shows how we really are wired.
Eloquent. Have voted, tweeted and spread the word about St. B. via my network. Things like this make me proud to be affiliated with NCGS. Rock on, sisters.
Thanks for this. Just posted it to my Facebook page.
There is so much about these issues that are, for lack of a more poetic word, concurrent. Thanks for putting it into focus.
Great blog, adding it to my feed.
Beautiful essay. Critically important cause.
Thank you
Michaela