Written by: Zeyad Elsalhy
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought on numerous challenges for our world in many different ways. Life can be difficult enough, but navigating the unexpectedness and having to adapt day-in and day-out can make any sense of progression a little blurry. For the young girls seeking education in our world, COVID-19 has had severe impacts. You and I have been setback by having to adapt to online schooling, keeping 6-feet apart or not being able to see our friends as often. For these girls, however, setback means a complete unraveling of past work done to get them into the classroom in the first place and provide them with the tools they need to flourish and shape their own futures.
PLAN International has created a fund targeted directly at impacting children’s education and well-being worldwide. As per PLAN’s website, donations go towards:
Promoting free, equal access to quality education for all children
Promoting action against gender-based violence
Providing access to sexual and reproductive health information and services
Tangibly, this is accomplished by communicating public health information, installing hand-washing facilities, and distributing hygiene kits whilst ensuring that the needs and rights of girls and young women are addressed (PLAN International 2020).
Here’s the link to the donation page:
With all that has transpired in the past few months, this might just seem like one more donation link to add to the plethora of links you’ve seen or read about. But that is not the purpose of this blogpost. Within Champions of Change, we try to instill a feeling of empowerment and educate those around us about issues and topics we are passionate about in an effort to bring people together and make our friends more informed than they were yesterday. When monetary contributions are not in your sights, we challenge you to question and judge your own privilege, to ask yourself what you can do in your own community to ensure someone is better off than they were yesterday.
Maybe you are a university student taking a class you find not to be overly difficult, but you notice that you have several peers struggling with the material. Their struggles may not be due to difficulty of the content, but perhaps they work full-time or have family members to care for on top of their already busy school schedule. Maybe you can offer your help on a couple things or offer a little support. This gesture, which may seem small to you, could be astronomically beneficial to your peers. This is just one example of how you can make a difference in our communal effort to combat the setbacks that have accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic.
Besides the COVID-19 relief fund, PLAN International has many different facets of support should you feel like your passion lies greater in other topics. Sponsoring a child, offering a Gift of Hope, contributing to Legacy Gifts & Securities, and sponsoring a community in a third-world country are other ways you can donate if you feel your money could mean more to you there. Again, regardless of what we think or believe you should know, we implore you to explore your passions and actively think of the betterment of others in your daily pursuits. Do your research, learn more, see yourself in that system, and start to recognize where you can dismantle some barriers.
This has never been and shall never be a time for which you are expected to transcend alone. Rather, this is a time for us to come together and find comfort in knowing that there are others around us who are fighting the same battles as us and who need us as much as we need them. Hope is something we must never lose sight of no matter how dark the path ahead may seem. As a human being, I remain hopeful that the good in others will always shine through and leave its contagious power in its wake.
Some additional resources you can check out to learn more :)
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