Stream of Consciousness: Mohabbat, A Benefit for Pakistan

October 1st, 2010

In an age where news travels at the speed of light the question isn’t getting the information. The question is what you do with it once it’s within your consciousness. I’ve been thinking about Pakistan for some time and I have been shocked at the limited amount of media attention this disaster has seemed to attract. Pakistan is an area of the world that has long since struggled through political, military, religious and social turmoil, and the flooding of this past summer, said to be the worst in the past 80 years, has caused 20 million people to be displaced from their homes and left an estimated one ninth of the population without clean water, shelter or food.

The flooding has decimated roads, bridges, schools, health clinics, electricity and communications. The disaster also created fears that the country will soon become even more unstable with more economic and government friction. The UN has appealed for over $450 million in international donations and the World Bank has made their promise to reroute money from other projects to provide $900 million in emergency aid to help with recovery efforts. With that said, The United Nations has rated the floods in Pakistan as the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent history with more people affected than the South-East Asian tsunami and the recent earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined. If that is so, the conversation about recovery efforts seems to be unusually quiet and without main stream support. I’m interested in examining why and developing an understanding of the answers. What do you think? How have you been affected? How have you shown your support?

In the meantime, some very special friends of mine and I have almost completed the organization of a benefit for Pakistan that will take place on October 14th here in Toronto at This Is London. More details to come!

Until then read about recent Pakistan here and donate here.

Mother Teresa once famously said “We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.” Maybe it’s easier than we think.

Xxo

Tags: sarah taylor, Stream of Consciousness