The world is going through a really tough time right now. While a civil war strikes someplace, others have been hit by natural disasters. As a result, more than 65 million people have been forced to leave their home behind and seek a new place to live. While several countries and state have shut their borders for these people who have nowhere to go, there is one community in the United States which is doing every bit it can to tackle this epidemic of displaced people.And this all started with one woman, Mary Poole.
It was a regular summer day in 2015 and Mary was breastfeeding her 9-month-old son when she saw the horrifying image of a refugee boy. The boy she saw was the 3-year-old Alan Kurdi who had drowned along with his brother and mother while trying to escape the war-struck Syria. Holding her own son in her hands, Mary was hit with grief and sorrow, and she could not even bear the thought of that ever happening to her own child.
That was when she decided that she could not just let such tragedies happen to innocent children. She decided to turn her own town of Missoula, Montana into a sanctuary and offer solace and safety to people who have been forced to leave their home. By 2016, she had started her own nonprofit, Soft Landing, aimed at welcoming refugees to her town and integrating them into the community so that they can lead meaningful and satisfying lives.
The plan that Mary had made was great but the journey to achieve that was laden with challenges. Even though she was able to find a number of compassionate people who were whole-heartedly willing to welcome refugees into their town, many skeptics opposed the idea. In addition to that, Montana is one of the only two states in the United States to have not participated in the refugee settlement made the road a lot more difficult for Mary.
Then she set out on a journey to convince her fellow Montanans that refugees were not looking for anything other than a safe place to stay and welcoming them would not have any negative impact on their society. She regularly had meetings where she would address that concerns of the skeptics and offered advice and solution. It took time, but after hearing Mary, many became receptive to her initiative and the idea of welcoming refugees to their town.
Soft Landing today has more than 200 volunteers who are dedicated to making sure that refugees can find solace in Montana and live a prosperous life. They not only arrange for a safe place to live for them but also organize classes, manage donations and do some other things that help refugees make a smooth transition to their new lives. So far, Mary, through her nonprofit 'Soft Landing' has helped over 120 refugees from Congo, Syria, Iraq, and Eritrea to find a home in Montana. And she continues to help more and more people.
Every one of us should take inspiration from Mary and do every bit we can to help these people in need. They have been forcibly moved away from the places where they have spent their entire lives and go somewhere else. Though whatever we do cannot be enough to compensate the grief of leaving behind their homes. But we can certainly make their lives a little less difficult than they already are.
(Image Courtesy: 1. Public Radio, 2. Missoula Current; Missoulian(Featured Image Courtesy)
