Get involved: Save Syria's Children appeal

Unless you’ve been cut off from the media this week, there’s no way you can have missed the tragic images of the little boy’s body washed ashore after his family attempted to cross the sea to seek refuge in Greece. This image has stirred so many people to want to get involved and find practical ways to help Syrian refugees who are so desperately seeking help from European countries.

You can read the background to the story about little Alan Kurdi here on the BBC website, where his father is interviewed talking about what happened on that awful night.

A huge group of UK bloggers has united to form a simple, yet powerful, photo campaign entitled Save Syria’s Children, using the stark reality of the thought that “it could have been me” for any one of our own dear children. We have joined with Save the Children UK to make it SO easy to donate £5 via text (or any amount, big or small, via their web page) to help them in their aid efforts amongst the most vulnerable of refugees.

TEXT 70008 and the word SYRIA to donate £5 if you want to get involved, and please share with others.

You can also snap your own photo and add the same words using the #savesyriaschildren hashtag and the “It Could Have Been Me” caption (or photograph yourself or just the words instead of your child for another option.) Or simply share our images on all social media channels, using the hashtag, to get it noticed. As of early this morning, it’s already trending!

Here are Save the Children’s terms and conditions.

Watch this moving tribute that has been put together by all of the contributing bloggers and please consider either donating to Save the Children or to Samara’s Appeal (with money or material items for the collections.)

Another great way to help is to make urgent collections amongst local parent groups, churches and schools for real items to be sent directly to refugee camps on the Syrian borders, where millions of refugees, predominantly women and children, are surviving in terrible conditions.

Samara’s Appeal is an amazing organisation, which is run by friends of mine, which is collecting much needed items for the freezing winter months ahead. Most refugees turn up with just the clothes on their backs, with nothing to sleep on or under and no coats or shoes for the winter. Many women have been raped and subsequently give birth in the camps, the horror of which must be unbearable. We have been making up mother and baby boxes for Samara’s Appeal, full of essential items such as nappies, muslins, creams, sanitary products, baby clothes and warm blankets. Many more are needed, along with so many more basic and essential items. Read this information page on their website to see a full and up to date list of items they currently need in their active appeals.

See the full list of WINTER CLOTHING needed here.

Together we can help to make a difference by not turning a blind eye when we see these little ones in desperate need. TEXT 70008 and the word SYRIA to donate £5 or visit Samara’s Appeal to find ways to donate much-needed winter clothing items (London, Brighton,Gloucestershire, Leicester, Middlesborough- current drop off points for collections.)

Please share this post and/ or the images and video using social media to help spread this campaign far and wide.

Thank you!

And finally, this incredibly poignant poem by Warsan Shire helps us to see the urgency and stark reality of why these poor souls are fleeing their once-loved homes. They are not “migrants” seeking financial gain, they are desperate refugees, escaping the brutality of war. Many have seen families murdered, women raped, children even beheaded in front of their parents by ISIS. Wouldn’t you be running for your lives too?

HOME

By Warsan Shire

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.