The Chronicles of Giving: The Star Fish, The Boy and The Old Man

Erm, pardon the spoof using Chronicles of Narnia, just want to share this story many of you may be familar with...

The Starfish Story --adapted from the writings of Loren Eiseley

As a young boy walked along a beach at dawn, he noticed an old man ahead of them picking up starfish and tossing them into the sea. Catching up with the man, the boy asked why he was doing this. The old man explained that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun.
“But the beach goes on for miles and there are thousands of starfish,” exclaimed the boy. “How can you alone make any difference?” The old man looked at the starfish in his hand and then tossed it safely into the waves. He turned to the boy, smiled and said,

“I made a difference to that one. ”

This beautiful story has reminded me of the recent twin crisis in Myanmar and China, though i would like to focus on the Myanmar cyclone Nargis incident. Now, as we all know, the current ruling military Junta in Myanmar is not very receptive of foreign aid and though this has changed in the past week with the combined efforts of both ASEAN and UN initiatives, many are skeptical of the transparency with which aid funds from abroad are handled by the Junta. Some of my friends and family feel that no matter how much money we donate to help the victims in Myanmar, it would hardly make any difference to the people there. I would like to add my two cents worth to this issue. Myanmar is currently entering the rebuilding phase and rescue efforts have mostly concluded. Whatever the Junta has done... forsaking the victims in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, expulsing foreign aid workers, preventing genuine aid from geeting to the victims who most need them is done- and can't be changed. While we cannot make a difference anymore to those who have died in this tragedy, we can and should make a difference to those who are struggling to rebuild their lives in Myanmar. Even if only 10 percent of our aid goes to the victims, at least we made a difference to them. Even if it was just for a day, an hour, it is still a difference to someone's life... Even if the generals were to take our aid and repackage it to make it such that the aid came from the generals, so be it, at least the people received the aid. So, to end of, i would strongly urge everyone out there, regardless of what the Junta has done, to continue sending aid to the victims of the cyclone Nargis disaster. We may not be able to make a difference to everyone, but at least we can make a difference to someone.