Being a highly sensitive person, I need to digest information about situations like that of the Syrian refugees in very small bites. The recent news of Paris provided a small window into a circumstance that I had been suppressing my exposure to for months, ever since that image of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi鈥檚 body washed up on the shore of Greece first started circulating.聽
Young Aylan鈥檚 five-year-old brother met a similar fate. According to reports in The Guardian newspaper, the boys鈥� family was fleeing Syria in hopes of coming to Canada to find a safe and peaceful place to live. It is nearly impossible to comprehend the horror and tragedy these families, and so many others, are facing now and in the coming weeks, months and years.聽
The imaginary and often arbitrary borders we have drawn through and around parcels of land, as though they are impenetrable walls, utterly defy our humanness. To think that we vested ourselves with the moral authority to decide who lives and who dies, by virtue of immigration policies vastly dictated to us by fear, is madness.
Fred Rogers, of Mr. Rogers fame, is quoted as saying 鈥淲hen I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 鈥楲ook for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.鈥欌��
Our community continues to be generous beyond measure on that front.聽
Take, for example, Grade 4 students Luca Capicik and Nicole McLeod, who recently spearheaded Stuffies For Syria through an Indiegogo campaign. Together with local parent and philanthropist Adam Greenberg, the pair managed to get almost 300 stuffed animals into the waiting arms of children who have fled their homes.聽
Last week, Greenberg visited a number of refugee centres in Germany where hundreds of displaced people were taking shelter. Over a Periscope app broadcast from Munich, Greenberg said that his trip was very worthwhile, and he encouraged Canadians and Americans to, with proper screening, welcome families looking for a brighter future.聽
鈥淚 received hugs, handshakes and huge smiles from parents so happy to see their kids smiling and laughing playing with the stuffies,鈥� Greenberg wrote in a social media update over the weekend. 鈥淚 know some people said that refugees don鈥檛 need stuffies, but I can tell you now that it simply isn鈥檛 true. They do need stuffies. They need friendship.鈥�
Greenberg has been working hard behind the scenes for months to help sponsor a family to come to Squamish.聽
Social media, by way of the Squamish Moms Facebook page, was atwitter this weekend with dozens of women rallying together to pick up, store, sort and drive donations down to Surrey鈥檚 Middle Eastern Friendship Centre, where 1,500 Syrian refugees are expected to arrive this week. Local residents have been brainstorming ways to support the expected families here too and are hoping to put donation bins at Brennan Park Recreational Centre.聽
Children continue to lead the charge. Nine-year-old Evelyn Sinclair has been knitting furiously to make stuffed animals to donate to children who arrive in Squamish so that they will 鈥渉ave at least one toy that would have been made with love.鈥� Her note to accompany each toy will begin with: 鈥淏ecause we all need a friend...鈥�
Her mom, Juliette Woods, said that we need to remember that the refugees are likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Woods is encouraging people to do their part. 鈥淚 know we are all getting ready for Christmas and maybe have projects on the go, but perhaps while you are in creation mode, you might be called to make an extra.鈥澛�
Sometimes, it鈥檚 just as simple as that.聽
