Take my hand

I lay awake for hours last night. Curled up in bed beside my little boy who tossed and turned as I held his hand. 

I lay there in the dark picturing another little boy, a little boy I don't know, a little boy that we all now have etched in our minds.

I lay there wishing so hard that I could have reached out to him in the darkness, told him to take my hand, so that I could have pulled him from that cold water and hugged away his fears.

'Mama' my boy called out.

'I'm here darling'

'Mama, I have a blocked nose'

'I know you do sweetheart'

'Can you die from a blocked nose?'

The poignancy of the question raised a sad smile - for these are our gentle realities. 

I wonder if that other mother heard her little boy call out to her that night. I wonder if she was able to tell him that she was there for him. I wonder how many other mothers are listening to their children calling for them in the darkness, allaying their fears with empty words and promises they can't keep. 

And then I have to stop wondering or the tears will never cease.

The more you see and read about the refugee crisis the more you want to turn away. I understand that. But what I've noticed is that whilst people like us are trying desperately to find ways to help these people, most governments are grappling to find reasons to keep them away. 

Why are they not listening?

Iceland hit the news this week because over 10,000 of their citizens have pledged to open their homes to a refugee in need. Wouldn't you do the same? Wouldn't you want to reach out and help that poor little boy? Meanwhile their government says they can accommodate just 50.


In the UK David Cameron has taken a hard line stance but is coming under mounting pressure to reverse it. His answer so far seems to be to build higher fences and employ more people to patrol them.



Germany thankfully is leading the way in the other direction. Under Ankela Merkel who says that 'To receive them well is not only in our interests, it is fundamental to an idea of what it means to be human" - they are welcoming them in. In fact one town sent so much help and goods that they had to be told to stop - and yet they still kept it coming. In the past 12 months Germany has received 300,000 asylum claims.

And Ireland? Ireland needs to step up to the mark. 600 people over two years are who we have offered to help. I'm actually embarrassed. Horrified and embarrassed.

What can we do?

Please sign this petition to Enda Kenny to tell him that as a country we choose to offer more. Then share, share and share again. It is only by people power that a difference can be made. Be one of those people that chose to make a difference. Take the hand of that little boy. 

Irish Parent Bloggers all over the country are staging an online blog march in support. You can read some of their post below. 

You can also join us on a world wide virtual coffee morning to raise much needed funds. Join up here and encourage your friends to do the same. 

If you feel you can and need to go further here are some more links to way and campaigns you can help.

• 5 practical ways you can help Europes refugees. 
• Join the World Wide Tribe on Facebook
• CalAid
• Save the Children - shame on Europe

Two years on #SyriaCrisis

Did you know that it's been two years since the start of the horrific fighting in Syria?

Coming up to one year ago myself and two other bloggers started 'A day of protest' in response to a horrific Times article about what was going on. You can read my post here. Around 90 other bloggers wrote posts too and we gained hundred of thousands of impressions and took over Twitter for the day. It was an amazing response because people cared enough to do something, even if that something was simply a tweet about what was happening.

You may ask what difference does it make. I know I sit here asking the same question. But what is the alternative. To do nothing?

Today Save the Children are marking the two year anniversary with a global vigil.  And you can help.

Why should you?

This is a picture of my 6 year old boy, sleeping peacefully as every 6 your old boy should.

And here Cat Carter reports on another 6 year old boy.

It's only geography that separates those two boys.

For these past two years Syria’s children have endured appalling suffering.

The plight of children is the hidden outrage of this conflict. This HAS to end. Together, we can bring this back to the top of world leaders’ agendas – but only if we act now.

Show the children of Syria that they matter, that we are watching, and that we are here to help. 

Show the world's leaders that we care and therefore they must too. 

How you can help:

Join the Global Vigil, Donate, or Tweet this post or any of the links below: 

Find out more about the crisis in Syria: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/savesyriachildren

Link to join our Global Vigil: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/savesyriachildren/takeaction

Link to donate: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/about-us/emergencies/syria-appeal

Time to help

A few months ago I wrote a post called 'Will you look away?' about the atrocities in Syria. Along with two other bloggers we called on fellow bloggers to get involved and spread awareness of what was happening there. About 90 bloggers took up the cause and in one day we reached hundreds of thousands of people causing over 3 million impressions.

Some of those people reading shrugged their shoulders and asked what good would it do. I couldn't answer that question but knew with every fibre of my being that it was better to do something than nothing at all. Better to write a blog post that no one read than to not write it at all.


Sadly three months on the people of Syria still need our help. But we CAN help.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking is a line I read from Wael, 16 who says “This six year old boy was tortured more than anyone else in that room. He only survived for three days and then he simply died.”
A six year old boy. I have a six year old boy. Six years old. He has blonde hair and a cheeky smile. He plays football and nintendo, he rides his bike down the road and cries if he has a bad fall running home to be comforted. A six year old boy just like that other six year old boy. No difference. I wonder if his mother was there, in that room, watching, unable to comfort or save her beautiful boy.
Save the Children are acting on two fronts - 

Image: Save the Children

Save the Children, who fight for the rights of children in over 120 countries, has just launched a campaign to come to the aid of Syrian children and have produced a collection of first-hand accounts of the conflict from children and parents receiving help from Save the Children after fleeing Syria. 




I know you want to help, and reading this and feeling like there is nothing you can do is hard, so here are three very real ways that you can:

1. Sign the petition. Save the Children are determined that the perpetrators of these horrific crimes against children are held to account and are calling on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to ensure the UN and its member states are doing all they can to make sure every crime against children is counted.

2. Save the Children is on the ground on Syria’s borders, providing emotional support to thousands of children who have fled to neighbouring countries, helping them recover from their experiences and rebuild their lives. The agency has launched an appeal to help fund its work in the region.  You can donate here to make a real and immediate difference to these children.

3. If you are a blogger please, please consider writing a post to spread the word to increase pressure and funding. It might just be the post important post you will ever write. If you are not a blogger then please share this post on Facebook or Twitter (#savesyriaschildren). 


It's time to help these children, because their own mothers and fathers aren't able to, and just imagine for a moment how that must feel.  

Will you look away?

On Twitter the other evening I saw a compelling tweet from @thepottydiaries stating:

"You don't have to find words - just read, & pass on the link. Everybody should read this piece. #syria"
(with a link to this Times article)

Coincidentally I had just moments before hastily turned the page on a story in the paper about Syria because (a) I wasn't really sure what was going on there but knew it was bad and (b) I was absolutely sure that it would upset me. 

However I felt compelled to click the link to the Times article and read it. And read it I did. All of it. Though it made my stomach sick and my eyes weep.

The article detailed the Houla massacre that took place in Syria last Friday in which 108 men, women and children were murdered.

The Times article began:

"The children of Houla were not killed by random shelling. The UN yesterday revealed that they were murdered one by one. The militia came in the night armed with knives and guns, and the young victims were executed with a bullet to the head or a knife to the throat. One photograph shows a cherubic baby girl, no older than 2, with a tiny gold ear-stud. She is wrapped in a white shroud. Half her skull has been hacked or blown away." 

It described a number of the photos of the murdered children in graphic detail. Too graphic for me to reproduce but reading it you can feel the emotions of the journalist who had to look at those images and use his voice to tell of the atrocities.

'But what can we do?' we all ask.

Well we can bury our heads in the sand, as I often do, knowing it is too terrible to dwell on and too hopeless to take on - or we can do what we would want other people around the world to do if these were our children.

We can read and feel and share and be outraged and shout with whatever voice we have. We can add those voices together to become a roar and we can hope that those more powerful than us will listen and do something, anything, to stop the massacre of these innocents.  

Today, Friday 1st June, is the day to make our roar heard. 

All day today bloggers from Russia, United Kingdom, Ireland, Syria and other parts of the world will be writing posts, tweeting, retweeting and sharing their thoughts on Houla.

To help make our voices even louder there are two petitions that we can sign that call on world leaders to step in and stop the killing:

Save the Children
and
Avaaz.org

Yesterday morning we started off with one tweet and four people who had made the decision not to look away. By 1pm we had reached 50,000 people and made 91,000 impressions. By 3.30pm it was 77,000 and 117,000, and Syrians journalists and bloggers were getting involved. If one person tweeting a link to an article can snowball to this then just think what 77,000 can do.

There comes a tipping point in everything and it must not take another Houla for it to arrive in Syria. 

Please tweet or share this post in whatever way you can to spread the message. 

If you are a blogger who would like to participate please write a post and use the hashtags #tippingpoint #Syria #Stopthekilling to promote it.