In the last 20 years, attacks against different humanitarian organizations that work in areas where the population is vulnerable to extreme violence have multiplied to the tenth power, according to reports released by the United Nations Organization. The volunteers expose their lives to the shootings and the cruel response of armed groups that seek to make it impossible for the most unprotected to access the resources provided.
Humanitarian aid consists of providing assistance to the victims of wars, pandemics or natural disasters. The objective is always to protect, save lives and alleviate human suffering, attending to the basic needs of the population and providing them with everything that is a priority to survive.
Every year, the urgency of undertaking new assistance projects confronts us with the harsh reality that millions of people suffer, all over the world. Faced with helplessness and complete despair due to the loss of all their belongings, whether due to armed conflicts or natural disasters, those affected receive much-needed support, along with the donation of warm clothes, the provision of food, the administration of medications, the required health care and the psychological support to cope with their new reality, after the tragedy.
Personally, since my adolescence I have been devoted to helping other people. As a journalist and documentary filmmaker, I promised to make my passion a channel where all voices are heard. It is not an easy task, it requires deep empathy, perseverance in the development of activities and fundamentally, respect for the other, as a guiding principle also in my life.
In 2017, I organized my first international humanitarian mission to contain the victims of Hurricane María, which hit Puerto Rico, summoning hospitals, companies, doctors and even celebrities such as Adamari López, Johnny Lozada, Carlos Ponce and Henry Zakka. , among other figures. We all returned to Miami, together with 300 victims of the catastrophe, who needed urgent medical attention and could not have survived on the island without electricity and food.
I remember that when we arrived at the devastated land, together with the team from Hasbro and the Hassenfeld Foundation (together, we managed two other humanitarian flights), the children ran desperately to ask us for glasses of water. It was very sad, but encouraging to be able to reach out and be a part of his recovery. All the work was recorded in the documentary «Hope», which we premiered in 2018.
Natalia Denegri: “How I found my calling?”
In 2002, I was walking through the streets of the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina), my native country, when I found a woman begging for alms. Moved, she told me that she had been a successful lawyer who had lost her apartment, her job, and could no longer afford her morphine to alleviate some of the pain from her terminal cancer. I accompanied her until the last moments and that’s when I realized that I wanted to do something to be able to help leave a positive message and take advantage of all the media she accessed, as a public figure to create inspiring, positive and supportive content.
In addition to looking for different means to make my message public, I also began to silently help different associations of single mothers, as well as different NGOs that work with children with autism throughout Buenos Aires, where I met the film director Rodolfo Carnevale who invited me to be part of the movie “El Pozo”. As part of the diffusion of the film, I gave several interviews for TV signals based in Miami, among them a very special report broadcast by CNN.
From there, the proposal to lead and produce the Corazones Guerreros program arose, a solidarity series broadcast on Mega TV in Miami, full of surprises, together with a wonderful team.
With them, we also developed the comprehensive production of 20 documentaries of a humanitarian and solidarity nature, such as «Double exile», «Hope, «Refugees» where we exposed the situation of 1.5 million Syrian refugees sheltered in Lebanon, on the verge of collapse; the saga «Venezuela, the truth» 1 and 2; «Inocentes»; «Journalism in a dictatorship» where we tell what it is like to practice journalism in Venezuela, and the Guajira project, through which we were able to build the first school in the Colombian Guajira, bring them electricity and every two weeks, send volunteers who can help all the children in the community who unfortunately die of thirst for not having access to drinking water. I am also proud to have presented the documentary «Beyond my hands», where we made visible the story of Franklin Mejía Castellanos, a young man who shows how nothing can stop us when we have the determination to move forward.
We are all important. The world needs people who work for their dreams and inspire others through their actions.
Humanitarian aid in Ukraine
Entering from the Ukrainian border is not an easy task. Controls are strict for fear of new attacks. Food, coats, diapers, medicine, are part of the largest resources sent to a hard-hit civilian population.
In a joint effort from our «Warrior Hearts» program together with Hasbro Toys, allied to the Little Lighthouse Foundation and Global Empowerment Mission, we managed to raise the figure of 10 thousand dollars for the assembly of basic needs kits with non-perishable food, sanitary elements for adults and children, protection, and thermal blankets, and collaborating with fundraising to open more assistance stations on the borders of Hungary, Romania and Poland, where they already have posts installed to give shelter to the thousands of immigrants, essentially to hundreds of women and children. In addition, from the Baires Grill restaurant chain, in South Florida, we were able to help exiles from Ukraine and invite them to travel with us to Miami to provide them with psychological support and support.
Humanitarian aid in Myanmar
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met to coordinate humanitarian aid in Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia. The meeting was attended by 9 of the member countries and special agencies of the UN.
The representatives discuss the recovery of the nations after the pandemic. Together with Japan, the member states of the bloc (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) increased aid and jointly propose policies.
The appointment is part of an attempt to end the violence in Myanmar, after the seizure of power by the army in February 2021.
Among the voices that decide to make themselves visible and intend to battle adversity, it is impossible to ignore the speech of the young woman crowned as Miss Burma, Han Lay, who used her exhibition to ask the international community for help, six months after coup d’état that the nation suffered on February 1, and left as a consequence the extreme repression in the streets, thousands of civilians dead, missing, added to the Covid-19 pandemic out of control in the territory and the widespread fear in the population. His words were very clear: «Today in my country, Myanmar, while I am going to stand on this stage, there are so many people dying, more than 100 people died today. I am deeply sorry for all the people who have lost their lives,» Han said. in tears.. «The people of Myanmar are working in the streets for democracy. I also want to support them from the stage right now. I want to say here, please help Myanmar. We need your international support, the urgent help right now,» the crowned young woman warned.
Help Taiwan
Currently, Taiwan only maintains diplomatic relations with 22 states, most of them in Africa and Latin America.
It is a strategic place, an issue that is extremely important to China and must be resolved. Discussing in 2022 about the independence of a country and its relevance in the international context seems an anachronistic matter. However, this debate is real and two great powers, China and the United States, are vying for control within their territory. In the middle, its inhabitants, their values and the latent declaration of «independence».
The words of President Joe Biden during his Asian tour opened the debate about the continuity of this historical line in local politics.
“We have a commitment. We support the «one China» policy. We report on everything we did in the past, but that does not mean that China has the jurisdiction and ability to move forward with the use of force to take back the island. So together with Japan and other nations, we want to firmly prevent this from happening,» Biden said. And he concluded «My expectation is that it will not happen, that it will not be attempted.» Like any statement by a head of state, and especially when it comes to the American giant, his words have a clear political intent. For its part, the Chinese government considers its claim for Taiwan’s sovereignty as a national cause and the defense of its maritime space.
«The US violated its commitment on the Taiwan issue, voided the one-China principle, and covertly and secretly incited and supported separatist activities for Taiwan independence,» said Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. «If this continues down the wrong path, it will not only bring irreparable consequences to the relationship between China and the US, but also carry an irreparable cost for the US,» the spokesman said.
To understand the context, it is worth remembering that in 1974, after his rapprochement with China, President Nixon ordered the withdrawal of the nuclear weapons that he kept in Taiwan and since 1979 the link between the countries is governed by the «Taiwan Relations Law» that It establishes that relations between the American state and the island are of an informal and unofficial nature, and that the United States undertakes to provide the Taiwanese with the means for their self-defense, but excludes any type of direct military action.
In 2001, Bush did not hesitate to withdraw from this commitment either. And Biden, at the beginning of his administration, also threatened to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of the island, in the context of a conference with the Japanese Prime Minister.
Against the background of the war in Ukraine, China is concerned to clarify that the situation with Taiwan is not comparable, because Ukraine is a sovereign country and Taiwan is a domestic issue of its own. Along the same lines, he carried out aerial patrols in conjunction with the Russian government in Japan, in the middle of Biden’s tour. However, it is currently analyzing reducing immigration tariffs on Chinese products, imposed by Donald Trump, which could mark a turning point in the conflict and defuse tensions.
Both countries do not hesitate to issue warnings when their borders are violated. But also, this type of conciliatory gesture puts in check the dissuasive function of military power and the key question about the irreparable and irremediable consequences of a new armed conflict.
Poverty is on the rise in Southeast Asia
The COVID 19 pandemic pushed 4.7 million people into poverty in Southeast Asia in 2021. According to a report presented by the Asian Development Bank, hunger in the region triggers alerts. According to the entity, extreme poverty represented by the threshold below 1.90 dollars a day currently affects 24.3 million people in 2021 or 3.7% of the 650 million inhabitants of this portion of the continent.
Before the pandemic, according to the report, the poverty figure registered a constant decline.
Consequently, from the strong restrictions imposed during the global isolation, 9.3 million jobs were destroyed, which reduced the economic activity of Asian countries. The estimated regional growth of the gross domestic product will be 5.1% by 2022, but the risk of an increase in cases due to the Omicron variant and the increase in costs derived from the war in Ukraine stands out, which will considerably reduce the expected figure. It is necessary, anticipates the entity, that the states invest in infrastructure, improve their health systems and adopt technologies that allow growth to be accelerated, ensuring improvements in people’s quality of life.
Natalia Denegri is an Argentine actress, television host, producer and writer, residing in Miami, United States.
