Unity is Important.....Before the Disaster!

I was inspired to share my personal thoughts with you. With a time like this that I find myself wanting to help our people and realizing that I am not being able to do anything (other than a donation and then returning to my life!), really makes me feel selfish and disconnected. Haiti, Jamaica, Brazil, Africa, and all other peoples/countries with people of color and/or oppressions have been ignored, and the way of our society is, the US has done a good job of keeping it that way! We are an amazing people and on this blog we have all people of all colors that wants peace, understanding, and love for all! Let's use this platform to build with one another.....so we can unite, understand, and rebuild our communities.

We have people from all over the world on this blog, in numerous cities and states. Let's meet up locally....let's plan community service projects and post them.....let's take trips and teach to be taught....we are a beautiful people with beautiful minds and there are spirits, the same as you and I living in conditions that are hard to bare. let's not wait for another Katrina or Haiti to care, let's build with our people now.

I will see what I can find....maybe a local organization in Haiti, or contact organizations to see how we can contribute in the long run now (rebuilding shools and hospitals. they will need textbooks, maybe we can draft letters to publishers or something, idk).

I am for donating money, but like Katrina, money was donated and the people are still suffering, displaced, and the city is still in shambles. Please give any ideas, thoughts, or events that contributes to this cause.

Let's start this year with making a difference, a promise to use our voices together for change.

Here are events, organizations I know about in the DC area:

Partners in Health (www.pih.org)
Busboys and Poets Accepting donations and they are having a fundraiser Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 2021 14th Street (14th and V street location)
www.yele.org

By the way, there should be volunteer opportunities for those who just want to help, not those with 10+ yrs of experience. We don't have to be in the hospitals or where professionals are, but why not to help clean, watch children, whatever. It's dissappointing that even help is regulated so tightly.

This was taken from a site for volunteers with over 500 postings of ppl with all sorts of skills that had no way of finding out what to do next. Just a posting of requirements but nothing else. Many voices who are genuinely concerned are once againg forced to turn the cheek and go on with there lives.

"Candidates with the greatest chance of being selected have fluency in the language of the disaster-stricken area, prior disaster relief experience, and expertise in technical fields such as medicine, communications logistics, water/sanitation engineering. In many cases, these professionals are already available in-country. Most agencies will require at least ten years of experience, as well as several years of experience working overseas. "


peace,

Freedom