“ There but for the Grace of God, go I”
Refugees, The Homeless & Panhandlers
The planet is increasingly becoming a sad place to be. We all expected that when we reached the year 2000 things would be very different — we'd have flying cars, colonies on the moon and a really clean world. Well — surprise, surprise! We have none of those things and if we don't fix the way things are going, we may be doomed.
When we look at the world we see people leaving their countries and becoming refugees: from Africa to Europe, Central America to the USA, Venezuela and Syria to any place that will accept them. (More than 25,000 Syrian refugees were admitted to Canada in 2015 and 2016.) We also see disaster-related refugees leaving Barbados. Any time a war, famine or environmental catastrophe happens, people are on the move. That is why I feel any negative feelings toward refugees should not be tolerated. These are people who (not of their own doing) need to leave their homes and face an unknown future. I say this because today you may be sitting pretty, but tomorrow you or I may become a refugee and so a sense of compassion is necessary.
In every large city throughout the world we will encounter the homeless — a sub culture that many of us ignore and wish not to see in our daily lives (let's be truthful). We encounter them everywhere on the streets and sidewalks and I sometimes wonder how and why they came to be there. We have various organizations and government services that are able to help them, but there definitely is a segment of this population that wants to be on the street. The panhandler or scam artist hurts the truly needy street person and uses our good hearts to continue this lifestyle. Too many times people have given money to them just to see it go to waste on alcohol or drugs. In some countries, giving money to beggars is good luck or a religious rule, but in North America we give them something just to have them go away.
So, what do you do? You see a man sleeping on the sidewalk and you want to help, but what can you do? Many times these people have mental health problems and should be under medical care; other times they are just having difficult times and bad luck dealing with the daily rat race. I can offer no solutions but I feel we should at least be aware and have compassion — understand that not all people think and live like us.
Photo Credits: See Acknowledgements