Kids in cages: You can help

Thursday, July 18th, 2019

New Zealanders tend to think there is little they can do about the detention of “kids in cages” on the southern borders of the United States.

“But there’s actually a bunch of things you can do, even from here. We need not feel powerless,” says Thalia Kehoe Rowden writing in The Spinoff.

“Here are some concrete actions you can take today to add your voice of outrage and pledge what aid you can to these children who are being tortured by a despot who likes to think of himself as the ‘leader of the free world”.

Here are some of her suggestions

Donate money to those who are helping directly
Help your American friends and family to exert their influence
Call on our government to protest
Protest to the US ambassador here in Aotearoa
Add your voice to international human rights protests
Channel your outrage and energy closer to home

A New Zealand presence

A New Zealand priest, Father Tony O’Connor, is working in a parish in Brownsville Texas which is right on the border between the United States and Mexico,

He says there are so many good Christian people on both sides, but more on the Mexican side, “who out of their own pockets are feeding and caring for these people as best they can.”

The “migrants who have nothing but empty tummies and sweaty, snotty clothes, rely solely on these self-sacrificing compassionate activists who daily clothe the naked, feed the hungry and give solace to downtrodden dehumanized brothers and sisters from the south”.