To start off I have a little background to what made me want to travel like this, bringing clothes and money for refugees.
The masses of refugees that have fled Syria are extreme and the burden they put on the neighbouring countries take their toll on both governments and especially the people of those nations.
I am not a big supporter of giv corporate NGO's, they have become an industry like almost everything else and absurd amounts of money is wasted long before anything reaches any refugee at all. After having been a donater my entire life, reading more about these groups and seeing how they are both used as tools to promote wars of aggression my brain started to spin up some ideas on how to be able to help in my own way.
For me giving have always been very personal. To me it is very wrong that the transfer of money, especially indirectly, if there is nothing more behind it. I have been disgusted by the emotional extortion used by NGO's before requesting money. I think it is wrong to trick people by using their emotions against them to make sure a third party gets a lot of money.
Especially if that third party have a history of wasting away what is meant to be spent on the people who need it the most.
At least I had a goal, a purpose for a travel. I lacked both what to focus on, how to approach it and how to complete such an action.
I visited Lebanon for the first time in November - December 2012, for many reasons, but 1 of the things I got to do was to at least do some basic research on how at least some parts of the society worked and how to accomplish this, being able to help 2 families from Aleppo and the realization that the refugees and others in need can be found everywhere. The problem was not to find those in need, but how to be most effective and making sure it would come to good use. This would mean that if I focused on 1 thing, but failed in delivering it to where I planned, I could always find someone else around.
From the very start my only criteria have been that they were not combatant. Only exception would be child soldiers [who are the ultimate victims; fighting & dying for adults wish for power] but only civilians.
What religion, why they fled, their political stance or w/e is without interest in that matter.
Last year this was the situation for the refugees and it has not become any better, rather the opposite;
http://dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Jan-10/201694-un-appeals-for-aid-after-winter-storms-hit-syrian-refugees.ashx#axzz2kppERxH3
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/23/330832/syrian-refugees-brace-for-harsh-winter/
http://al-shorfa.com/en_GB/articles/meii/features/2013/01/15/feature-01
http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/in-pictures-winter-hits-syrias-refugees-8451522.html
http://www.shelterbox.org/news_global.php?id=1090
http://www.unhcr.org/50efebba9.html
In other words; not a pretty sight.
The masses of refugees that have fled Syria are extreme and the burden they put on the neighbouring countries take their toll on both governments and especially the people of those nations.
I am not a big supporter of giv corporate NGO's, they have become an industry like almost everything else and absurd amounts of money is wasted long before anything reaches any refugee at all. After having been a donater my entire life, reading more about these groups and seeing how they are both used as tools to promote wars of aggression my brain started to spin up some ideas on how to be able to help in my own way.
For me giving have always been very personal. To me it is very wrong that the transfer of money, especially indirectly, if there is nothing more behind it. I have been disgusted by the emotional extortion used by NGO's before requesting money. I think it is wrong to trick people by using their emotions against them to make sure a third party gets a lot of money.
Especially if that third party have a history of wasting away what is meant to be spent on the people who need it the most.
At least I had a goal, a purpose for a travel. I lacked both what to focus on, how to approach it and how to complete such an action.
I visited Lebanon for the first time in November - December 2012, for many reasons, but 1 of the things I got to do was to at least do some basic research on how at least some parts of the society worked and how to accomplish this, being able to help 2 families from Aleppo and the realization that the refugees and others in need can be found everywhere. The problem was not to find those in need, but how to be most effective and making sure it would come to good use. This would mean that if I focused on 1 thing, but failed in delivering it to where I planned, I could always find someone else around.
From the very start my only criteria have been that they were not combatant. Only exception would be child soldiers [who are the ultimate victims; fighting & dying for adults wish for power] but only civilians.
What religion, why they fled, their political stance or w/e is without interest in that matter.
Last year this was the situation for the refugees and it has not become any better, rather the opposite;
http://dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Jan-10/201694-un-appeals-for-aid-after-winter-storms-hit-syrian-refugees.ashx#axzz2kppERxH3
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/23/330832/syrian-refugees-brace-for-harsh-winter/
http://al-shorfa.com/en_GB/articles/meii/features/2013/01/15/feature-01
http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/in-pictures-winter-hits-syrias-refugees-8451522.html
http://www.shelterbox.org/news_global.php?id=1090
http://www.unhcr.org/50efebba9.html
In other words; not a pretty sight.
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