The World's Poorest People Need Your Help, and So Do You

https://archive.ph/SxAAt


... So what is to be done? I hope that someday soon we will invest in systemic solutions to these problems. But until then, I have found myself increasingly convinced that the best way to help people facing catastrophe is to support local organizations working closest to them on the ground — and, whenever possible, give those people money directly.

There is an organization called GiveDirectly that does exactly that: It puts donated cash into the hands of needy people. In war-scarred eastern Congo, it provides money to help make sure children are fed, clothed and can go to school; in nations like Malawi, Liberia and Mozambique, it has facilitated direct cash transfers to some of the poorest people in the world. It also helps Americans. It raised funds for families that lost SNAP benefits during the government shutdown ...

Yet in the most dire humanitarian crises, cash is often of little use. In those places, local organizations — often working in concert with the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations — are best placed to provide essential lifesaving support. I have been awed by the work of Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan, networks of volunteers that set up communal kitchens, help people flee to safety and rebuild critical infrastructure destroyed in the country’s devastating civil war. You can donate to these volunteers through the Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition...

Mutual aid is a very old idea, rooted in solidarity rather than charity...Find a mutual aid group working in your community, or in a community you want to support, and offer your time, expertise and resources, not as charity but as an investment in building a more just and equitable world for everyone. The organization GlobalGiving has a database that includes more than a thousand of them around the world. Or find a group working in your own community, and if there isn’t one, why not start one?...Mutual aid is in many ways the ... seeds of something better and more humane that could lift us all.
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Thanksgiving is just one of the 365 days a year I am always thankful for DU.
Thanksgiving reminds me that every single day is another chance to count the blessings (of nature, health, love and effort of friends, family, strangers, and our very existence) that we too often take for granted.

Any act of giving is an act of thanksgiving. One love.