Images Can Make A Difference

Images matter. Sometimes they can make a difference.
Some images remain with us forever: a baby and a vulture, a collapsed school building after a terrifying tornado, a frantic family on a rooftop in New Orleans.
Now we have a new one: the body of a little boy washed up on a Turkish beach. Will this be the image that finally prompts the world to act?
For several years now, the world has watched in dismay, but done little more than shrug its shoulders as thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions of people fled the chaos in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. For years, the experts have been calling this the “humanitarian crisis of our generation.” It is not as if we didn’t know about it.
Finally, some of the refugees have had enough. They have decided they can’t wait any longer in the squalid temporary camps for the world to do something. They decided to take matters into their own hands.
This problem is simple: a little boy with his family, along with millions of others, have fled their homes to seek safety and shelter from a vicious war. Some are struggling to get into Europe. Many more remain in temporary refuges. Now this little boy is dead, like hundreds of thousands of others, and the survivors need our help.
The answers are complicated and in flux. It will take careful research and analysis to determine how to provide help, which organizations to support and what needs to support . That is why we have created the CDP 2015 Refugee Crisis Fund. The Fund provides funders with the opportunity to join with other funders to take immediate action, acting collaboratively to reach maximum impact.
Are you ready to act? Would you like to learn more? Write to us at bottenhoff@disasterphilanthropy.org or regine.webster@disasterphilanthropy.org.