Sameerkankali - Sameer Kankali Ⓥ ☮

From Greece to Germany, volunteers are joining forces to help newly-arrived refugees and migrants get food, clothes and medical attention - plugging glaring gaps in the EU’s broken asylum system while Europe’s leaders still grapple for a common solution to the growing crisis.

“There was this Syrian family: a father with a small girl. She tried to open the door of my car. I thought she must be after the food, so I asked her father what they need. ‘You have the same car as us,’ he responded, ‘but ours exploded back in Syria. Her mother died in it.’

“And then I understood what the little girl was looking for.“

Konstantinos, a volunteer, looks away as he shares this story with me. Locals on the Greek island of Kos call him ‘The Hardcore One’, because he juggles two jobs with daily deliveries of food, supplies and support for refugees.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYDQcBQUDpw)

August 28th 1963: March on Washington

On this day in 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place. The march was a key moment of the Civil Rights Movement, and a triumph for the nonviolence philosophy which underpinned the movement. The march is best remembered for Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, given in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which extolled King’s vision of an America free of racial discrimination. Other speakers included chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee John Lewis and veteran civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph. When politicians in Washington heard about the march many, including President John F. Kennedy, feared that there would be violence and rioting. The peaceful gathering of over 250,000 supporters of civil rights, with many whites in attendance as well as African-Americans, highlighted issues of racial discrimination and unequal housing and employment. The demonstration in the nation’s capital, and King’s speech in particular, spurred America into action and paved the way for the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, vital tools in the fight for racial equality.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’… I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”