Audrey Hepburn, internationally famous for her career as a beautiful Hollywood actress, considered her involvement in the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, more commonly known as UNICEF, as the most important thing she ever did in life. Hepburn used her fame to earn a position as an International Goodwill Ambassador, which quickly became her greatest passion. In April of 1989, during the Second Sudanese Civil War, she gave her “Statement to the UNICEF Executive Board” to advocate a potential relief program, Operation Lifeline Sudan. Audrey Hepburn’s speech addressed the dire situation in Sudan, showed her support for humanitarian aid, and as an effect launched a series of relief efforts in Africa. Hepburn’s challenging …show more content…
She began her speech arguing that although UNICEF’s mission revolves around aiding children around the world facing conflict, the situation in Sudan calls for higher action. Hepburn continued by noting that the problem lies in “man’s tendency to destroy… everything we hold dear,” including children (Hepburn). Here, she makes it evident that the world must not ignore Sudan’s state, for it exemplifies mankind’s inhumanity, which will eventually cause the downfall of civilization. Hepburn also points out that people are to blame, not nature, for the excruciating famine. She asserts, “These are not natural disasters but manmade tragedies for which there is only one manmade solution - peace,” (Hepburn). At this time, she calls to attention the true culprit of the complication to the UNICEF board. She comments that Operation Lifeline Sudan will have been immensely successful even if it does not accomplish everything it aims to. The program will find success in the delivery of the message of hope and proof that “only through the corridors of tranquility” can Sudan find a solution (Hepburn). Hepburn makes a similar conclusion as Akol: the only chance left for Sudan lies in civil peace. Even so, she understands the limits to her contributions, but she remains optimistic. Hepburn concludes her statement with, “There is so much we cannot do. We cannot give the children back their parents, but we can return to them their most basic human rights, their right to health, cleanliness, and life,” (Hepburn). Her powerful use of pathos here emotionally touches the members of the audience and serves as a call to action for supporting relief in
Leaving the comforts of the first world, Jessica Alexander abandons her job, fiancé, family, and home to venture into the misleading volunteer work of Humanitarian aid. Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid by Jessica Alexander is a conglomeration of stories that are written from Jessica’s memory. “It is a true account based on [Jessica’s] best recollections of the events and [her] experiences.”.
Samantha Nutt, a medical doctor and co-founder of War Child, narrates her sixteen years of experience traveling in conflict zones struggling to help the most vulnerable targets, women and children. Her book “Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies and Aid” strings that bind Western nations to war torn countries and simultaneously critiques the serve of militarism and misguided aid efforts, which she believes to exacerbate their mission in bringing relief from poverty and conflict. The author analyzes from her multiple trips to war zone nations of Congo, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan.
She paints readers the vivid picture of children sleeping in piles like dogs on dirt floors, mothers who brewed alcohol to make money feeding their children the mash from which it is made to dull the pain of starvation, and crowds of people who haven’t eaten for days fighting like savages to access a pot of beans. She admits that many times she felt overwhelmed at the work there is to do. This portion of the book reminded me of my mission trip to Guatemala during my freshman year of college. On the day our group went to the local street market, I had dozens of villagers following me around the market, begging me to buy their product. I ended up using all of my money that day because I had such a hard time saying “no” to these people. I remembering collapsing on my bed that afternoon, mentally exhausted and heartbroken because I could not do more for the villagers who really needed the money to feed their families. Connecting this memory with Katie’s experience brings me the understanding that in the social work field, as well throughout life in general, we cannot reach every person who needs our help, no matter how hard we try. What we can control is the love we show the people we interact with and the action we put into making a
The Rwandan Genocide also is still an existing issue which killed one million people, mostly Tutis and some Hutu’s, continues to be one of the most tragic and memorable events in the contemporary society of Africa. Specifically for those who were involved. Lucie Niyigena, a 70 year old woman who managed to survive the genocide, is still forced to face her fear everyday living beside someone who could have potentially killed a member of her family. This is just one of the still existing hardships for those forced to live it. This problem has not been changed since historical times partly because modern society has chosen not to make the change.
In “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” Peter Singer urges all Americans to donate any money not being used for sustenance to help children overseas. When I read this article in my AP Language and Composition class last year, I realized the duty I had as a privileged individual, to help these underserved communities. However, this was not something my friends and I could engage in-- we were all broke and didn’t even have jobs, not to mention the harrowing expense of future college tuitions haunting our dreams. But this didn’t mean we couldn’t help save children’s lives. I found three other colleagues who shared my goal of helping kids globally and we collaborated to co-found our high school’s own UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) club.
1999 marks the year Elie Wiesel presents the White House with his speech “The Perils of Indifference.” He argues that “to be indifferent” is to be “inhumane” (Wiesel par 11) . Four years later genocide in Darfur occurs; the first genocide of the 21st century (Darfur Genocide) . This genocide claims the lives of at least 300,000 innocent people and displaced 3 million more people (Darfur Genocide) . Meanwhile, according to “Sudan Backgrounder,” “With the international community focused on resolving the conflicts between the north and the south, a growing conflict in Darfur was
From a close look at the current situation in the world - globalization is drawing more and more countries, and on the other hand, more and more are getting further from each other in terms of life level. In the story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" Ursula LeGuin reminds her readers that walking away from a problem is not a solution of it. Omelas’ well-being in some supernatural way is associated with the life of one child, who is caring a lonely existence in a dark basement. However, citizens of this city did not dare to change lives or try to come to the child with a gentle word. Otherwise, the happiness for the whole city would be over. At the same time, all the people of the city knew this child. The author raises many humanitarian questions that will influence the civilization’s future survival: will people do something about a problem or keep walking away and enjoy their happiness for someone’s suffering?
So if it is in our power to help the children in Africa who are suffering from starvation or even disease their country that does not know how to treat yet, we are obligated to help. Some may ask why they are thousands of miles away why are we to give our money to them? In that case as singer has noted distance should not matter in the sense of being able to help starving kids. When you ask yourself whether you’re in the bind of being able to help starving kids or buying the newest up to date iPhone the first answer would be to donate, but many people see the relief organizations as a scam and wonder if they were to donate if the money would really go to the people they said they were going to. In that case you have to do your research in the organization to be sure they have had a good reputation. Singers view on this topic was very strong in the sense of having knowing what would be right or wrong morals in singers
Although there was a peace treaty in 2010, violence escalated in 2014 resulting in the displacement of over 400,000 Darfuris (“Darfur”). Correspondingly, Wiesel mentions the story of St. Louis which involves human cargo of about 1,000 Jews being sent back to Germany resulting in the destruction of Jewish establishments, synagogues being burned down, and thousands of people being placed in concentration camps (Wiesel). Moreover, the Sudanese government has used “starvation as a weapon of war” leading to the famine of over half a million citizens as a result of a low “cultivation season.” In addition, the Sudanese government has prevented humanitarian organizations and the UN from providing aid to the civilians. At the same time, Wiesel shares the “miserable consolation” of believing that Auschwitz and Treblinka were not known to the leaders of the “free world” because the leaders did not use that knowledge to quickly rescue the prisoners (“The Perils”). This relates back to Wiesel sharing his opinion that we choose to be indifferent because we don’t get bombarded with the troublesome situation of having to break our routine to help the victims of a situation that has no effect on us (Wiesel). Overall, the cruel injustice of Darfur is an example of the inhumanity of indifference in today’s century and world that
Wiesel proclaims that "We see their faces, their eyes. Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony? Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine." Wiesel specifically utilities children as examples of victims of indifference as it is an easy way to induce the audience to gain sympathy for the victims who endure apathy, and ultimately will want to create change. Children are seen as helpless beings due to the fact that they depend a considerable amount on others. Due to this reality, children are usually more vulnerable to impassivity as they become much more impotent as they receive little or no aid in their fight against indifference. This method is used in many subject matters such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) who provides humanitarian assistance to children in developing countries. The UNICEF puts out many commercials to help hungry children in developing countries; however, children aren't the only ones who are hungry. There are many adults and some elderly who face starvation as well, but using footage of starving children provokes more emotion from consumers in first-world countries who are the ones who donate money and food to those children out of sympathy for them as children are universally known to be dependent on others and are seen as helpless beings. Wiesel utilizes the same strategy in his speech. He could use other examples of victims of apathy, but ultimately employs children as an examples for the purpose of inducing emotion out of his audience. Wiesel also inputs this emotional appeal at the end of his speech as a final attempt to bring awareness to his audience about the severity of insouciance to prompt them to create change. It is as if it is a final call to action as he ends the speech "carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope." This fear is evoked and supported by
Tragedy is a complex word that can be found in the most medial of tasks. Children filling up bottles of water in a refugee camp is horrific but in Africa it’s not that shocking. Susan Sontag’s “double message” (263) from her essay on “Regarding the Pain of Others” is shown in the CNN.com article “U.N. declares famine in Somalia; makes urgent appeal to save lives” due to the known situation of poverty, corruption, and a weak government. In this essay, I will address first the image and its connection to Sontag via censorship, and the shock value of the photograph. I will then address how the article complicates the photograph by deviating from the “double message”. Finally, I will address how both the photograph and the article complicate
Genocide, a dire event, has been recurring time and time again throughout history. In the past, there was the Holocaust, where Hitler exterminated over six million Jews based on his anti-semitic views. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish author, has become a very influential man in educating the world of the true events of the Holocaust due to his involvement in the disaster. Presently, a genocide is occurring in the Darfur region of southern Sudan, in which according to Cheryl Goldmark, “a systematic slaughter of non-Arab residents at the the hands of Arab militiamen called Janjaweed” has been taking place since 2003. (1) Not only is genocide a tragic historical event, it also continuously occurs today.
Humanitarian action is what the world turns to in case there is a crisis in any part of the world. But as David Rieff suggests in his book, “A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis,” there is a crisis in the humanitarian world and space. He draws from first personal experience in places like Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo to tell how some of the challenges humanitarian organizations face; including their struggle to be neutral and apolitical.
In the author’s journey as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zaire, he experiences offerings by some of the poorest people in the world such as food, wives and shelter. This is because in the village he was staying in, being stingy and greedy was the worst things someone could
Pairing her with an older actor whose character was eventually disarmed by her inestimable charm" ("Encyclopedia of World Biography"). Hepburn was outspoken for doing what she believed was right and went all over the world with UNICEF and no child she helped knew the beautiful woman was a famous