For every person in need there is a person with an equal and opposite desire to help. This axiom is a fundamental principle of humanity (when humanity is not fragmented). A reservoir of healing action exists. We need only open the floodgates.

Alienation, violence, and marginalization can be addressed at the core through healing relationships. We have the full power to change our relationships. [Compare Gandhi’s example about how this occurs (you will find this somewhere on this site!)]

These are centers that heal systemic conflict. Though this is not the main reason we want to create them, the possibility that they could address sources of global violence is an additional reason that we are compelled to do so. This is a function of our Center – and also True Relations. It is a mission called for by our shared humanity and our sense of what is good. Injustice cries out for a personal, humanresponse, and, in part, brings into existence the Center.

Though the task is not easy, it’s easy enough to say: we must heal humanity’s fracture – individual and socially – by becoming capable of true friendship. True friends resolve problems spontaneously, immediately, and fully. All other relationships resolve problems with a greater degree of the external and the superficial. (This is also a function of True Relations.)

Help centers – Connecting diverse people and cultures

To provide a forum for communications between those of different backgrounds, education, language, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and nation. Break down barriers that seem impenetrable. To make use of the power of the Internet to achieve communication on a personal level that addresses core personal issues. To learn about each other, act together, and help each other.

Connecting people in distant places in ways that help them learn about each other and act upon what they learn. Connecting those in need with those who want to help. In ways that respond to their true interests and needs.

Cities might adopt several diverse communities, such as some very poor villages in a variety of continents, plus a larger town or city. When a person becomes a member they choose or are assigned a single person or family in each sister community. The duty of those linked in this way is to get to know each other, and to respond in some way to each other’s needs and hopes.

In addition, there could be a forum where those in need could announce themselves to members of the sister community. This would be an opportunity for those in need to be recognized and discovered by those who seek to help. Available on a website, or displayed in a public area, the public could view these announcements; or there could be a committee which reviewed the requests and asked or assigned participants to respond. (More thoughts on this subject is at the Huzanity website.)

Sister communities. Forming ties between communities in different regions. Break down barriers that seem impenetrable, to achieve communication on a personal level that addresses core personal issues. Provide a forum for communications between those of different backgrounds, education, language, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and nation. True sisters are equals.

An 800 number and a 911 number for the world.
Ambulances race to the scene when a person has a heart attack or a stroke. This is a situation in which a physical problem is addressed by a government agency, and this good work is representative of the way we live in industrial society. But there is nowhere to turn in the face of other kinds of catastrophes – the intense suffering of people forced into dehumanizing or dangerous situations, or whose spirits are in the process of being broken.

If there were a 911 number for the world, any person in a dire situation could find the help they need. Perhaps it could function like this: In an emergency a person could go to a center, where they would be able to fully describe the truth of the situation they are in, which would be confirmed by staff and put on a website. This site could be accessed by those who want to help.

As in our other work to develop healing relationships between people in distant lands, the process would involve the following two steps:

(1) Learning about the person and the situation, in a way that is inner and deep as well as practical.
(2) Responding in ways that address the inner life of those implicated ('implicity'), and seeking to provoke change through understanding and personal challenges.

Some situations are so dehumanizing that we ought not to go on pursuing our private happiness. No matter where in the world these tragedies are taking place, we must make a response. This is called for by our shared humanity. The ability to know what these problems are and how we can make a practical and useful response is the service that we want to provide.

Examples:
extreme level requiring a personal response
Prostitution. Any women tempted to be a prostitute would have viable alternatives.
Child abuse. No child is abused sexually or physically. No children should be forced to live on the streets. No children should be forced to be soldiers.
Hunger, malnutrition, starvation.
Human trafficking. No one should be forced to work against their will. Everyone should receive a minimal salary.
Sex crimes. Women should be protected from sex crimes of all kinds.
…and more

moderate level
Education. Access to primary or secondary school education for those who want it.
Pornography. Children (and adults) should not be forced to view pornography.
Government corruption.
Other human rights abuses.
…and much more

Sister Communities

We go about our daily life, engaged in activities that fall within the circle that encompasses us. What’s going on outside of that circle? In distant places villagers and city-dwellers lead a life very unlike our own. But they are connected to us in ways that we cannot know, economically and spiritually. We are splintered and dispersed throughout the world. If only we could find each other again, an ancient unity could be redeemed.

If friendship and love can be deep and lasting, maybe relationships between communities can also. Just as a human being can reach out to other human beings, connecting in a way that breaks through barriers of ethnicity, sex, and age, becoming a true friend, and expressing real love, the same can be done by communities. A community can reach out to another community far away. They may be separated by barriers of nationality, language, culture, and history--the whole way of life may be different--but if they share what is deep and essential, those differences may be overcome.
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More Reflections

"I must refuse to insult the naked by giving them clothes they do not need, instead of giving them work which they sorely need. I will not commit the sin of becoming their patron, but on learning that I had assisted in impoverishing them, I would give them a privileged position and give them neither crumbs nor cast off clothing, but the best of my food and clothes and associate myself with them in work." Gandhi. Article in 'Young India,' Oct. 13, 1921. (from The Gandhi Reader, page 229)

"The most urgent task is to destroy the myth that accumulation of wealth and the achievement of comfort are the chief vocations of man. How can adjustment to society be an inspiration to our young if that society persists in squandering the material resources of the world on luxuries in a world where more than a billion people go to bed hungry every night? How can we speak of reverence for man and of the belief that all men are created equal without repenting the way we promote the vulgarization of existence." Abraham Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, 31. See pages 30-32, at least.

Why am I drawn to travel and work in faraway places? There is a rupture, which I want to heal. As I walk through crowded streets in exotic cities, I look as deeply as I can into the eyes of strangers, raised under conditions so different from my own. I want to see through the differences. That is because I feel that the difference that exist between people, and especially between faraway peoples, is the same as the division in my own soul. And that healing the division between peoples is the same as healing the division in my own soul, only more important, because the scale is so much greater, and so is the suffering.

Why is it so important to focus on poor countries? There are obvious reasons: suffering and need exists on a large scale there. It’s the personal reason, though, which addresses me: a persistent, subtle feeling of distress, which arises from the disjunction in my own psyche.

If we want healing, integrity, and happiness, we must look within and without. The distant reality impacts the inner reality. We are wounded, and one of these wounds is caused by a fracture in society, and one of these fractures is the division between rich and poor. The only way to heal our soul is to heal the rift between rich and poor.

This cannot be accomplished through material means, by charity or technical assistance. Charity only reinforces the rift, because it presupposes and depends on the existence of inequality and injustice. When assistance is simply a policy or program, based on an idea or theory, it has a certain coldness and aggressiveness to it.

The relationships we form must be equal. We are not the givers, or the takers. There is another form of relationship, which we can cultivate. The purpose of our centers and schools (if we create them), must be to cultivate, facilitate, promote and sustain authentic relationships. Direct, human understanding is the only way to heal conflict and injustice at its source. Any mutual work must be a spontaneous expression of that understanding.

Help Centers

Action Without Borders has initiated a program to begin ‘Help Centers’ in communities across the world. These centers are designed to bring together in a single location resources for those who want to help those in need, and to form a global network of these places.