What’s involved?
The old law of an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
—Martin Luther King
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The problem is too big…
There are many issues in the world today that seem too big, too far away, too serious. It’s difficult to see how one small person can do anything to help change it. Blood feuds in Albania can be seen this way. Acting on this issue is not as easy as donating to a charity, planting a tree or volunteering at your local charity centre. Blood feuds exist in a country far away from ours and are motivated by an entirely different way of looking at life, and justice.
Volunteer
In Australia, we don’t have any organisations dedicated to combating the issue of blood feuds—but we do have many that target human rights issues in general. By volunteering with one of these, you can help to strengthen the organisation, enabling it to fight more effectively against human rights injustices. Most organisations don’t address the issue of blood feuds specifically, although this is starting to change as the UN begins to take notice. At the moment, one of the things you can do is to approach a human rights organisation about expanding their issue base to include blood feuds. Check out the organisations below.
Donate
As with volunteering, donating to an organisation that campaigns on human rights injustices helps to strengthen it and enable it to fight more effectively to stop these injustices. Check out the orgs below.
Raise Awareness
A crucial part of taking action on this particular issue is raising awareness. The more that people know and care about the issue, the more effective change will be. Knowledge increases people power, funding and the belief that something can be done. Did you know that more women die in Australia each year from heart disease than breast cancer? Yet you are more likely to see people sporting breast cancer bands or ribbons. Why? Because there is an increased awareness about breast cancer and more campaigns targeted at making the public care about the issue.
So how can you raise awareness? Firstly, get informed. Then start small: talk to your family and friends. Then think bigger: arrange a talk at your school, uni, workplace or in your local community. Paint a mural, shoot a short film, write a song or submit a story to a newspaper or magazine. You can find tools to do all these things in the toolkit. (Link to toolkit).
Change the Rules
You may think you can’t do much to change the system—blood feuds are the result of many different factors that may seem out of your control—but there are things you can do. Your government is there to represent you and has the ability to put pressure on the governments of countries where blood feuds are a reality. You can take action by putting pressure on the government to do this. You can also lobby the government to accept more refugees from countries where blood feuds are a reality. You can even put pressure on international bodies like the UN to become more involved in the area of blood feuds.
How can you do this? You could start a petition or sign one—www.thepetitionsite.com. You could also write a letter or email, make a phone call, or even organise a protest. You can find tools for these in the toolkit (Link).
Organisations and Groups
You can get involved by making a donation or by joining a campaign such as ‘Stop Violence Against Women in Pakistan’.
www.hrw.org
You can get involved by donating, volunteering or joining a campaign. Check them out at: www.amnesty.org or www.amnesty.org.au
You can contribute through donations, volunteering or doing an internship. Check it out at www.un.org/rights
You can get help out by donating, getting involved in a campaign or volunteering. Check them out at www.oxfam.org or www.oxfam.org.au
Why should people do this?
