by Nicole Plyler Fisk

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from teaching Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games series to freshman composition students, it’s that — despite what presidential candidate Donald Trump would have us believe — we should not wax poetic over bombing anything. As horrible as the Capitol is, there are those within it who are working against it: people like Cinna, working subversively; or Plutarch, working undercover; or Cressida, Castor, and Pollux, waiting patiently for their opportunity to leave; or, in the end, Prim, who’s there as a medic.

I’ve written recently about the fact that we must intervene in Syria, not militarily but by stepping up our humanitarian game. Although the United States reached its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016, that number — in the scheme of things — is paltry, less than a quarter of one percent … which, as Samantha Bee quips, “is ten times less than the acceptable amount of wood pulp in your parmesan cheese.” We should do (and be) better.

There are organizations that need our support, like the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, a group comprised of people who pull drowning refugees into lifeboats (think: Alan Kurdi) ; or the White Helmets, a group comprised of people who pull Syrians from bombed buildings (think: Omran Daqneesh).

But there’s also a need for human connection — for us, in our privilege, to be able to reach into the mess of things and clasp a hand we find there.

Living in the digital age makes that possible.

Two years ago, UK’s Daily Mail published a story about Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel, a Syrian ambulance driver who lives in rebel-controlled east Aleppo and started feeding all the cats left behind when war broke out and their owners fled.

A year ago, Alessandra Albin, a cat-loving Lebanese college student living in Italy, read the article, found Alaa on Facebook, and asked what she could do to help. They started a Facebook group, Il gattaro D’aleppo, and Alessandra started collecting donations, which she then forwarded to Alaa through his employer, Syria Charity (based in France).

Since then, a relatively small Facebook group of 4,578 people from around the globe have funded:

an animal shelter, named The House of Ernesto, for dogs, geese, and (mostly) cats …

a playground next to the animal shelter, named The Garden of Hope, for neighborhood children …

no less than two new ambulances for Alaa, after his were bombed … twice …

a much-needed well (the community had gone months without fresh water) … and more.

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When I wrote about “the last gardener in Aleppo” and bemoaned the fact that I had no way of knowing how to find and help Abu Wad’s son, Ibrahim, Alaa responded with a photo of him with his siblings. He had already visited, because … of course he did. It’s what Alaa does. Those trees in the Ernesto shelter? Purchased from Abu Wad’s, now Ibrahim’s, since-destroyed garden.

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