Published in the Independent Australia, 26th February 2016:

Baby Asha: How you can support her

Excerpt:

“Empathy can kindle the flames of compassion, but we require someone to thoughtfully and dispassionately fan those flames in the right direction. Left to our own devices in a third-world country, we would disproportionately give to an individual. Charities use an individual’s face to invoke emotion and concern, but they distribute funds in a less biased and parochial manner.

We can use passionate empathy, however irrational and biased it may be, in a thoughtful way. Protesters can provide humanistic fuel to an organisation that stand for what they believe in, but can implement change in a measured and strategic fashion. Just as a charity distributes money in a way an individual could not, organisation such as UNHCR and the Refugee Council of Australia can distribute the good intentions of protesters in a meaningful way. With Asha in mind, support one of these organisations.”

– Steve Stankevicius