If you would like to continue supporting migrant workers in Lebanon outside of times of war / attempted genocide, this is an organization & network run by both former migrant workers and Lebanese advocates who are working to improve Lebanese society by naming and shaming the abuse migrant workers go through.
REMAN, a group of African migrants in Lebanon, are coordinating an emergency response to support the migrant women and their families in the face of this crisis.
We are asking for your support to enable members of REMAN, the Réseau des Migrant-e-s d'Afrique Noire in Lebanon, to organise and provide this vital support to people displaced by the bombing, and provide basic necessities.
man i don't know how to say this but gazans here are risking their lives to make posts asking for help. they are asking for you to contribute a small amount of money to buy food or medicines or get shelter.
whether we like it or not, we are complicit in this genocide. either because of our silence, or because our tax money if being used to bomb them. i thought that people would be more eager to help gazans, trying to 'reverse' the damage somehow.
contrary to what i thought, people are moving on. they're moving on from the al-shifa hospital strike, they're moving on from refugee camp massacres and from school bombings, they're moving on from dead children and orphaned children.
please don't be indifferent. help my friend alaa amsse [ @alaakh998 ]. she urgently needs money to buy a new tent. she needs medicine for her sick son. her tent was flooded and she needs to buy supplies. please please help her if you have the means to. her fundraiser has been verified by 90-ghost and the butterfly project (#307).
I write to you with tears in my eyes and a heavy heart. After 188 days of displacement, constant fear, and struggling to survive, we managed to escape with our lives and reach Egypt. But the pain didn’t stop there. Just yesterday, we lost my children's grandfather 💔, not due to direct war, but because of malnutrition and the lack of basic life necessities. We couldn’t save him, just as we couldn’t save our home or our dreams.
The rest of my family is still trapped in the war, suffering the same harsh conditions that led to the passing of my children's grandfather. We are here trying to build a new life, but we have lost everything. We lost our home, and my children were deprived of their schools and universities. Even my eldest son, who worked so hard to build his future, lost his job and saw his dreams shattered.😔
We are now in desperate need of your help. We seek to secure a safe home that will provide us and our children with basic needs. Life in Egypt is extremely difficult, and prices are soaring beyond our reach. All we ask for is a chance to rebuild our lives and secure a better future for our children.🙏🏼
From the depths of my heart, I ask you to stand by us in these difficult times. Your support means hope and life to us.🙌🏼🇵🇸
https://gofund.me/59e9578a
i’m so glad you have gotten out of the direct line of fire.
please help this family start to recover and survive
It's with a heavy but hopeful heart that I watch Palestinian families fundraiser on here, slowly accumulating the precious little money to go around that they need to survive. However, not everyone is so lucky. A lot of Palestinians that have not had that kind of luck, that did not get early verification, that did not get massive platforms behind them from large bloggers, have approached me in my inbox, asking me kindly to do what I can for them.
It kills me that I have so little to give myself, but I've seen this platform collectively raise enough to change someone's life. I've made a list of Palestinian fundraisers that are extremely low on funds, in the hope that drawing attention to people who have not been lucky at all can help turn that luck around.
I know most of us can't possibly give enough to get all of these families safe in one go. But please, reblog this list. Pick one or two fundraisers, give what you can, and then keep track of it. Slowly, collectively, we can make a difference in these people's lives.
Weeks of Sept. 21 - Oct. 5th Priority list rotation!
These are fundraisers that my vetter @moayesh has told me are high priority either due to the low amount of funds or due to the situation the person is in. If you donate to any of these, please leave a screenshot below to encourage others to donate too!
Saleh Abu Sardana: "I am creating this campaign so that I can secure my children’s future and get my life back again. I am working to achieve this with your help. The money will go to provide a decent life for my children and my wife. I hope that you will help me with this dream that did not exist before October 7 and has become a dream today. Thank you" <- Only has 65€.
Ragheb's family: "We are living in unimaginably harsh conditions. After losing home, 5 members of my family and jobs. We lost everything: our home, jobs, security. Even the devices we used to work with, due to the devastating war in Gaza. We are now living in dreadful conditions, without a stable shelter or a source of income." <- 738€.
Saadiya Masoud: Her husband and one of her children have suffered SEVERE injuries. Her husband had shrapnel lodged in his chest and her son has a spinal injury from a building collapsing on him from an air strike. Please help this family as they recover from their injuried and trauma. <- 1039 AUD.
Tawfiq Al Tatri: "Every day we move from one place to another. My house was destroyed on my family. Fortunately, we came out alive after losing many of my relatives and neighbors after the destruction of the neighborhood in which I live. Now I am trying to save my children’s lives from death and save their future." <- 1740€.
Maha Madhoun: "Eman's elderly mother enduring chronic illnesses without access to vital medication. Their escape from the relentless bombardment of warplanes, dodging bullets and navigating through a sea of injured and deceased, is a haunting ordeal etched into their memory." <- 4550$
also wait since we're all here we should all donate to this gofundme. it's for 20 people, mostly kids, in gaza for necessary supplies and to eventually leave if they hit their goal. even if the goal isn't reached it's still useful for food etc. good place to donate!!
They are #42 on @gazavetters list of vetted GoFundMe's.
Farah and Mohand need $35,000 in order to both pay for their daily expenses (food and rent), which can cost up to $400 per month, and to rebuild their apartment bombed during the war, which will cost $31,500
They currently raised only $2718 out of $35,000 since last month!
Please share and donate if you can, and follow @farahmohanad2@farah-mohanad @farahblogsworld to spread their posts!
As we fight imperialism abroad, remember the people who are suffering under apartheid at home. Help Marcellus Williams by signing the petition to stay his execution! Read to learn more about Mr. Williams situation.
YOU! Are granted the power to suddenly own ONE video game franchise, and to hire the best people who have ever worked on it (and/or anyone else you want in on it).
What video game franchise are you rescuing--er, acquiring?
This emerged as a video on a French Subreddit of an crocodile farm where the man holding the shovel is trying to get all the crocs in the enclosure into the water so that maintenance can be done on the enclosure safely.
Unfortunately this has drawn harsh criticism from people believing this is abusive behavior. Crocodiles are strong, heavily scaled and armored creatures. The severity of the bonk this handler is giving them is basically a smack on the tush to get them safely into the water.
Tl;dr: no, you're reading this, because there's nothing funny about hitting an animal with a shovel and I can't believe I have to say that.
The snouts of crocodilians are some of the most innervated tissues in the entire animal kingdom. They are more sensitive than human fingertips. They can detect the tiniest pressure changes in the water; an alligator in the pitch-black dark can sense the ripples from a single drop of water in an aquarium, even when their hearing and sense of smell are blocked. Their faces are covered with tiny sensory organs. The epidermis is 40% thinner immediately above these tiny sensory organs, while the keratin layer is 60% thinner and more compact. Here's a map of that nerve tissue:
And this guy knows that because when he hits them with the shovel, the moment of impact is on the side of the face. He is making the decision to hurt these animals.
In the stills, you can see that he's going in from the side and the front of the mouth. He's not smacking them on the tail or flank, he's hitting them in the face. These animals are afraid of him, because this man is coming in with a shovel and hurting them, on purpose. Why is the one in that second still opening its mouth and charging? Because it is afraid of the man with the shovel, who has come here to hit it.
Seriously, this is toddler stuff. Did you not learn in preschool that it hurts when you hit things? Did your parents never say "no, we don't hit the doggy, he doesn't like that?" The crocodilians don't like it either! You see how many of them fled or took defensive positions immediately? That's not a good thing in captive animal management! You want them to NOT be terrified of you because a terrified animal lashes out.
Think for a moment about your fingertips. You need those for typing, for scrolling, for touching, for finding out about the world. Now imagine me smacking the hell out of them with a shovel because I wanted you to move. Not fun, right? You'd call me abusive for doing that right? Perhaps I could have found a less-aversive way to get you to move rather than beating you with a shovel. Perhaps I should have learned your body language better, or asked you to move with auditory cues, targeting, anything else other than beating such a sensitive body part with a shovel. Crocodilians are quite trainable and easy to move in zoological settings. Here's a video from Reid Park Zoo showing exactly how their alligator targets and follows a pole:
And because crocodilians are so intelligent and have such strong sensory input, you can move them without having to be in the same room. When I was job shadowing at a zoo many years back, I moved a fully grown male Cuban crocodile away from the nest he was guarding with nothing more than some splashes in the off-exhibit water. I was fourteen and had never worked with a croc of any kind before, and I was able to do it because the zoo had trained their animals to shift. That's basic predator safety. (I mean it's basic animal safety, but I don't want to get into that. I'm talking about how bad of a zookeeper you have to be to think that the only way to shift crocodilians is to hit them.)
Even baby alligators can learn how to follow a target.
Here's a video of Zoo Australia moving the largest species crocodilian, a huge male saltwater croc. This is a far more dangerous procedure, and surprisingly, it can be done without hitting them! You'll notice they do use physical cues here, like the top jaw rope, which is aversive- but also notice where it sits. Compare it to the nerve map above, and the locations where the animals are being hit.
So yeah, this is abusive, and if you think it's not, go smack your hands with a shovel and see how you feel after. You won't like it! Also, maybe we don't hit things, because we are grown ups and have different tools in our skillset. If my one-year-old niece can gently pet a lizard, this grown-ass zookeeper can learn some basic animal handling skills.
Sources
Leitch, D. and Catania, K. Structure, innervation and response properties of integumentary sensory organs in crocodilians. J Exp Biol (2012) 215 (23): 4217–4230. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.076836
Knight, K. Croc jaws more sensitive than human fingertips. J Exp Biol (2012) 215 (23): i. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.081950
Soares, D. An ancient sensory organ in crocodilians. Nature417, 241–242 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417241a
