On the 13th of November A Drop in the Ocean’s sister organization was launched in the US. Two previous volunteers, Laura Femia and Kim Proal along with A Drop in the Ocean’s Secretary General are the founders of the sister organization. After working in the middle of the ongoing refugee crisis in Greece both the American women strongly wished to shine a light and increase awareness of the conditions for refugees on the American continent.
“Reza’s” dream of a everyday life
Today is the UNs International Children’s Day, and we want to use this day to shift our focus to the children who have been forced to flee their countries. Thousands of children spend large parts of their childhood in refugee camps with their lives in limbo. For most of them, their right to education as determined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child is not being met. They lack safety and security in the camps and have no hopes or guarantees for the future. We met “Reza”*, who is 14 years old and lives in Skaramangas refugee camp. His biggest dream is that his father will get a job and that him and his sisters will get the opportunity to go to school every day, something which is considered a part of everyday life for most people. Read more about his story, life in the camp and his thoughts about the future.
Every drop counts
It was good for me to find a way to contribute. Even though I would like to contribute more, I feel like I am at least doing something. And that is exactly Trude’s thought, every drop counts. – Margrethe Rose
The reunion – a story about a mothers struggle to reunite with her children
This week a year ago the twingirls Lamar and Lorin landed in Norway together with the sisters Marya and Maya after being apart from their Syrian mother Abeer for 21 months. A Drop in the Ocean has previously written about Abeer and her story. Read the whole story about the long and dramatic struggle to reunite with her children and what really happened here.
Three layers of understanding
I usually say there are two different means of understanding something.The rational and the emotional. If a child melts a straw in the flame of a candle, it will realise on a rational level that it might hurt if it sticks its finger in there. This lesson might be remembered throughout the child´s life, but it also might not. Yet if the child sticks its finger into the flame and does get burned, the lesson will be leaned emotionally. It will be in the childs´ memory forever. With news it is similar. We will hear, see or read about them and relate to them rationally. Unfortunately the overflow of (negative) information makes us protect ourselves and almost numb things out in the pursuit to stay happy and sane in an already difficult-enough every day life. In the case of the refugee crisis -through people around me and myself- I experienced three layers of understanding…