Rita Fromholt is a lifelong seeker of environmental and social justice and an animal and nature lover from the heart of the Coastal Temperate Rainforest on Vancouver Island, Canada.
War, extreme weather, crumbling democracy...For so many, 2023 has been brutal, and the signs point to a worsening before it improves.
We’ve seen the start of two wars that have stunned the world – both the Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Hamas conflicts are examples of deep, unresolved inter-generational traumas that we have failed to acknowledge and heal from.
We’ve also experienced the increasingly catastrophic effects of climate change worldwide with fires, floods, storms, rising sea levels, and loss of life in our oceans.
At the same time, we are witnessing the erosion of democracy and extreme parties taking control in all parts of the world. With these changes comes increasing fear, leading to rises in racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia.
There is good reason to feel an amount of apprehension, hopelessness, and even despair about the future. It all seems too big, too much to comprehend. What can one person do?
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. Countless examples exist of people coming together to solve social and environmental problems worldwide. The trouble is that we hear little about them in the mainstream news, so viewing the world as going downhill is easy.
But there is no doubt that we are in a period of history that legendary writer/philosopher/activist Joanna Macy calls The Great Unraveling – old systems and ways of thinking are no longer serving us and are beginning to crumble.
Ecosystems, democracies, and institutions (including organized religions, police services, militaries, and academia) are revealing themselves in great need of revision to rise to the challenges of our time.
But we can’t wait for them to catch up – individuals collaborating are the key to advancing the positive social and environmental changes we need to see now.
Personally, I have found that the best antidote to despair is to take positive action. This can be as simple as donating money to a charity of your choice that is doing good work, or it could go so far as running for public office or starting or joining a non-profit organization.
This signals to ourselves and the universe that we have not given up and won’t surrender to the darkness. The world doesn’t need more despair, negativity, and guilt. I believe it requires those of us who CAN do something positive to DO something positive.
Joanna Macy says, “When our responses are guided by the intention to act for the healing of our world, the mess we’re in not only becomes easier to face, but our lives also become more meaningful and satisfying.”
This is part of what she calls the Great Turning in her book on Active Hope.
A few years ago, I embarked on an initiative that would forever change my life. With a group of friends and neighbors, we formed a group under the Canadian government’s Private Refugee Sponsorship Program to bring a pair of young Syrian brothers to Canada who had been living in a refugee camp in Lebanon for years after their brother was killed in the Syrian civil war in 2015.
Millions of people fled at this time, some lucky enough to make it to Europe, but most got stuck and remained stuck in border countries like Lebanon. Under this uniquely Canadian program, groups of private citizens agree to sponsor an individual or family of refugees.
Working with a local non-profit and coordinating with the federal government, the group agreed to raise enough money to support the refugees for one year. The program has brought over 325,000 refugees to Canada since it began in 1979 and is being copied by countries worldwide, including recently in the USA.
In our case, we raised $40,000 to sponsor the Syrian brothers (who have extended family here already) to come to our city of Victoria. The paperwork and fundraising took years of work and dedication, but after three years of waiting, the brothers arrived in 2019. They found jobs quickly, improved their English, and blended well into Canadian society.
Both are now Canadian citizens, married, and starting their own families. We still keep in touch, and I see them regularly. It’s hard to describe how this experience made me feel. Our little group from Canada helped two of the millions of refugees worldwide. Were they any more deserving than any other refugees?
No, but somehow fate connected us to them, and we are joined by this experience forever. I love knowing that my actions directly impacted the lives of two human beings and could have very likely saved their lives. How more human can we be than that?
In response to the increasingly horrible conditions civilians find themselves in in the Middle East, our sponsorship group is forming once again to bring another family of Syrian refugees (related to the brothers) who are trapped in southern Lebanon, not far from the Israeli border. Being of Palestinian descent, you can only imagine the fear and helplessness they feel. They have nowhere to go, no money to leave, and lack passports and citizenship documentation to leave the country.
We will do our best to get them out as quickly as possible, but even after we raise the money to support them, we are told there are about 100,000 refugees in the queue waiting for government approval, and the process will take years. We can only hope they survive long enough to see Canadian soil.
In my admittedly privileged white lady status, living in one of the most prosperous and equitable countries in the world, I can feel guilty, or I can use my privilege to help others. In my heart and soul, I believe this is what we are meant to do.
READ MORE > Her Story, Rambler Cafe Blog
Leave a comment