Friday, September 04, 2015

Refugee crisis in Europe

If you hang in YA centric spaces on Twitter, you may have seen Patrick Ness, heartbroken over the latest news of the goings on in Europe decided to start a little fundraiser for Save the Children: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=PatrickNess
Save the Children happens to be near and dear to my heart, particularly the UK branch of it, although I have nothing against the US or worldwide bits of it.  In college, since I was without work visa, I could not work for pay while in Scotland, but I could volunteer.  So, I volunteered briefly with a local youth group (this seems very appropos now, I really had no idea I kept picking similar things to do with my spare time) and then also at a charity shop.  St. Andrews, for whatever reason had a large number of charity shops, and I was assigned through the student charity group to Save the Children the first year.  And after that, I was known the the lovely woman who organized all the volunteers so after I got my class schedule, I would go straight to Betty, and she would put me on a shift.  The shifts were short (two hours I think) and we would either sort donations in the back, or run the register in the front.  It was a pretty easy job, and yet, the sales of the donations and some Save the Children branded items went to a good cause, and also, hey cheaply priced clothes and such too.  (I actually ended up getting my student gown there, after someone donated their pristine one.) 
So, Save the Children is a charity that is meaningful to me, partly for silly personal reasons, and yet they do great things.  Certainly plenty of charities and other organizations and governments are chipping in to try to assist with this.  This article from the Independent has a number of suggestions. The governmental ones are Euro-focused, but this is a many pronged problem and there are lots of ways help is needed.