The organisers of World Humanitarian Day wanted a different kind of donation for the event, which commemorates the life of UN aid workers. They asked celebrities to give up Twitter and Facebook sites for the day to people helping in crises.
On a torrid August day in Baghdad 12 years ago today, the newly occupied city was rocked by a huge explosion felt more than a kilometre away, which sent a thick column of black smoke rising into the later afternoon sky.
A suicide bomber had driven a lorry packed with explosives into the Canal Hotel, the headquarters of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq. The device was detonated directly under the office windows of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
De Mello died instantly, along with 22 others. The attack was later claimed by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi and his Jamaat Al Tawhid wa’l Jihad group.
The immediate consequence was the withdrawal of all UN workers from Iraq and fundamental rethink of the organisation’s security. But in the long term it also led to the creation of World Humanitarian Day, held each year on August 19.
The goal of World Humanitarian Day, commemorated for the first time in 2009, is to remember the sacrifice of de Mello and his colleagues, and to focus attention on those still working to end suffering around the world.
The events organisers are seeking donations this year, but not of the usual kind: they have asked people to give up their social media accounts to provide a showcase for the aid workers still making a difference.
Those signing up would host, through Twitter or Facebook, a first-person narrative that would reveal in posts and photographs, over several hours, one of the many humanitarian crises. Among those offering their accounts is the singer Leona Lewis and actress Shay Mitchell.
The idea, said the organisers, is to use the vast reach of social media to engage younger people with the world’s humanitarian issues and show that they, too, can make a difference.
Here are four stars setting an example:
Kenna
Ethiopian-American musician Kenna has donated his Facebook feed to Anwar Abujesh, a refugee who said his life changed two years ago when Finn Church Aid started a circus school at Zaatari Refugee Camp, in Jordan. Zaatari was created for Syrians fleeing the Syrian civil war. The camp has more than 80,000 refugees.
Mr Abujesh said he loves being the camp’s circus trainer, helping the camp’s children to use their pent-up energy, learn to trust one another and deal with their war trauma. He said the boys are “getting happier and stronger”.
“Experts say that children’s limbic systems, part of the brain that deals with emotions, motivation and long-term memory, become paralysed in war situations. Sometimes, in the middle of an activity some of them seem to forget what they’re doing. Some have trouble focusing and listening to instructions,” he wrote. “Children and youths at Zaatari need a way to unwind and focus their attention on something positive. The circus school helps to give them hope for their future.”
The children at the camp train in a hangar with a padded floor, divided by a curtain – boys on one side, girls on the other, Mr Abujesh explained. He posted a photograph of the tent where it all began.
“I always get emotional when I think about how all this started. Many of my students started the circus so shy and scared but now they’re running around confident and excited.” A picture of children holding balls of yarn is captioned: “Today’s activity is DIY juggling”.
Eventually, the circus went on tour and he shared a photograph of the girls dancing to the Spice Girls, shortly before the final rehearsal. After the circus, he wrote: “Today was such a great day, a lot of applause and satisfaction. I’m so proud.”
Cody Simpson
Cody Simpson, an Australian pop star with 7.5 million Twitter followers donated his account to Thair Orfahli, a Syrian refugee now living in Germany.
Mr Orfahli told his story through a series of tweets, beginning with a picture of him “making new friends at the Arab International University in Damascus”. This peace is shattered, he said, as Syria filled with tension and fighting. “I’m not sure what the future holds for me here.” Another tweet revealed the conflict to be escalating, with a bomb going off near him and wounding many people.
Mr Orfahli made his way to Lebanon, where one in four people is a Syrian refugee. After a while, he no longer felt safe and left for Egypt with a group of people. In Egypt he helped his fellow refugees. However, the respite was brief. “The security situation in #Egypt is worsening a curfew is now in place.”
Unfortunately, his passport was stolen and, unable to replace it, he could not get a visa to stay. “It’s 2am, can’t sleep. Police were just here at @Amaltikva’s house asking if she is hosting Syrians.”
Mr Orfahli paid US$2,000 (Dh7,340) to cross from Alexandria to Italy: “Many don’t make it but I need to take the risk.”
The boat carried 234 other refugees and migrants. He posted a photo of him and some of the others crammed together, and expressed admiration of their strength. “I have no passport, no money and no clothes. Nothing. But I am happy to be alive.”
He had travelled 3,248 kilometres, but Mr Orfahli soon has to leave Italy: “It’s not my best hope for asylum.” He took a “long & dangerous” car journey to Munich, a major entry point for migrants.
There, he tweeted: “I’ve arrived in #Berlin and applied for asylum, fingers crossed.
“Couldn’t have made it w/o my friends. Patience & courage.”
Lang Lang
The Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang donated his account to Dr Mike Karch, a medical volunteer with the International Medical Corps, who tweeted about a rescue mission after the earthquakes in Nepal this year.
Dr Karch described the scene as he arrived as “utterly devastating”, with rubble everywhere and “thousands of homeless people in the streets”.
Aftershocks slowed down relief efforts, and landslides cracked his phone. “Imagine what that means for houses!” IMC volunteers set up a mobile medical unit 3km away from the landslides and received patients from a nearby village ravaged by landslides.
He posted a photograph of “Medical Corps essentials” including a gun, knife, lamp, rope and binoculars. The volunteers learnt that a woman’s husband was still stuck in the village and needed help. Dr Karch ran down the mountain with an emergency medical technician, a guide and the man’s wife.
He lamented not having a Nepalese search and rescue dog because he “can’t even make out what’s a building and what’s a mountain”. They found the man, who had spinal injury and a stroke. His neighbours took the initiative and tied him to a rock pile three days ago to stabilise him. The team said there was no way to get a helicopter to the site, and they did not have a stretcher, so they had to “take turns carrying him fireman-style”, swapping every 50 steps. When a stretcher arrived, they strapped the man in and found a spot for the helicopter. As they climbed the mountain, more neighbours offered help, swapping two men every three minutes to save energy.
A rescue helicopter arrived. Dr Karch said this was fortunate, given a lack of aircraft in the relief effort. “So relieved that we’re on our way to the hospital. This man now has a chance at life,” he wrote.
They took him to the hospital in Gorkha, which had borne “the brunt of relief efforts”. The man survived and returned to “what’s left of his village”.
Ricardo Kaka
Ricardo Kaka, 33, the Brazilian footballer known as Kaka, donated his feed to Nuri Sherpa, who was part of a different Nepalese rescue mission. “Most of my life I’ve been helping climbers from all over the world hike the mountains of Nepal,” said Nuri. This year, he was part of a team helping Canadian Don Bowie climb the Annapurna circuit. The night before the team was to reach the summit, the ground started shaking. “We’re safe but hundreds of villages are flattened.” The sherpa’s family’s house was destroyed. “I want to be with them, but I’m needed here,” he wrote.
Nuri joined the UN’s World Food Programme and spent three weeks trying to “get the Larke Pass open for supplies”. The pass, 5km high, usually has 1,000 mules pass through every day.
The first donkeys arrived bearing food for cut-off villages. He helped to prepare them for the long journey ahead. “We crossed the first devastated village of our journey,” Nuri said. “It’s staggering to see from above.”
The team travelled through freezing temperature and low oxygen: “Sometimes the slope seems never-ending.” They carried not just food, but equipment and medical supplies too. “We hike from village to village assessing needs and relaying them via satellite phone back to @WFP.”
halbustani@thenational.ae