the collected winter

Planned Parenthood: Okay, I don’t feel like we’ve paid enough attention to what a total monster the vice-president-elect is, and women’s reproductive rights are in his crosshairs. Planned Parenthood is an amazing organization. When I had no health insurance, they were the reason I could afford cancer screenings and the birth control pills that made my heavy, painful periods manageable. Now that I don’t need them, I will always give them cash, knowing how much they can do for other women.

ACLU: A lot of people said that they never considered the outcome of the election as a possibility. The American Civil Liberties Union, however, knew this could happen, and they’re ready. If the president-elect makes good on even half of his campaign promises, there are a lot of vulnerable people who will be effected. We need someone with the resources to fight back.

The Human Utility: Formerly the Detroit Water Project. This is a non-profit I’ve given to in the past who work to get people’s water turned back on in Detroit and Baltimore. One candidate in the race said they would do something to help tackle income inequality. The president-elect was not that candidate. You can’t work to fight against oppression if you’re worried about a fundamental like having water. If you want to see your money make an immediate difference in someone’s life, this is the scale of operation that will make that happen.

Volunteer

I spend my Saturdays at Trampoline House’s Women’s Club. Trampoline House is a community center in Copenhagen that helps promote integration for refugees and asylum seekers. Women’s Club is their weekly day where the house is a space given over to women only (and their children, regardless of gender).

Trampoline House offers invaluable resources like legal advice, language classes (Danish, English, and Arabic), and medical care, as well as offering a safe space to people who need a place to belong other than the camps they live in. As a foreigner, I can tell you that there is a lot more to integration than language. You need contact with people if you want to learn about a culture. Recently, Danish volunteers taught the women at the house how to make a Danish-style lunchbox for their children, so they could fit in at school (this reminded me of my aunt, born in America to immigrant parents, telling me about how all she wanted for lunch as a kid was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, like the other kids at school).

In case you’re wondering what refugees in Denmark have to do with the American elections, look at it this way: A lot of votes for the president-elect were fuelled by fear. I’ve heard a lot of American talking about ISIS in the guise of asylum seekers heading for the US to destroy everything they hold dear. These tend to be people whom have never met an asylum seeker.

I hear plenty of ignorant talk in Denmark as well. I’ve heard, “Of course we’d like to help everyone, but…” so many times I’m afraid I’ll pop a blood vessel. If we’re going to change a global attitude about the suffering of displaced peoples, we have to start locally. If people regain their senses in Europe, maybe they’ll regain them in the US as well.

No, we can’t help everybody, but I usually hear that phrase from people who don’t try to help anybody. Do what you can, no matter how little. Maybe the first volunteer shift you show up for will make you feel useless, but that’s why you have to show up for the next one. Maybe you’ve only got a dollar to spare, but their are organizations who need those drops in the bucket (unlike the Salvation Army, who ask you to drop cash in an actual bucket).