Our futures and families are intertwined and fragile. This contains disturbing topics...

I listen to the news in my car, at work, in my home. I listen and, increasingly, I have to fight back tears. Horrors are being visited upon people of all ages in Congo, Sudan, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Cambodia, and too many other countries around the world. Women and children are kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery around the world. They face a future of repeated rape, torture, forced abortions, mutilations, sexually transmitted diseases, and possibly murder. Men and boys are being conscripted into militias, drugged, beaten, threatened, and forced to endure soul-killing atrocities. Villages are being burned, wells poisoned, the men taken or killed, the women raped or killed, and the children- even infants- are raped and left behind. Families are torn apart, bodies are broken, dreams crushed, futures dashed, hopes killed. Young girls suffer from fistulas, caused by gang rapes or implements used to violate them. Boys have to learn to live without their hands, hacked off so they can't pick up a gun. Women give birth to babies with the faces of their attackers. Schools are destroyed. Industry and agriculture cease. Suffering is manifest in all its forms.

I look at my child, my husband, my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, my nieces, my nephews, my friends, my neighbors, my self. I realize that these people suffering around the world are the same as the people in my home, my family, and my community. These people are members of our family and they need our help. Governments, armies, police, political stability, economic health, education, and health care are the elements needed to stop the criminals, the militias, or the monsters wearing human skins. But we can help our families. We can help our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers. Even with our shrinking pocketbooks and tighter budgets, we can help. We can give to charities and organizations that build hospitals, build schools, teach skills, provide counseling, and foster hope. We can volunteer our time to bring attention to the ongoing atrocities. We can stand up when others cannot. We can speak when others are silenced. We can save our families. We can build our future.

Amnesty International

Doctors Without Borders

Women for Women International

Campaign to End Fistula

The Polaris Project

There are so many more organizations trying to help and so many more people who need help. It starts by choosing just one and putting my two cents where they are needed most.