Where do we start to remedy problems as vast as nations divided across the globe, extremist conflicts, civil wars, and the killing and displacing of massive numbers of innocent children and adults?
A recent STAT First Opinion newsletter drew attention to Carlinville (pop. 5,500), a town in Illinois, which was taking in a refugee family displaced from Venezuela. For more than 20 years, my wife and I have spent increasing time in the small village of Conques, in rural, south-central France. In 2016, the people of Conques welcomed, housed, and provided work opportunities for a family (a mother, father, and four children) from the Sudan. I have seen these children grow into their teens, prospering emotionally and educationally.
The village also hosts, several times a year, periods of respite and spiritual recovery for groups of 20 or more young men and women who escaped from the torture and ransom camps in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and now Libya. They escaped from a sure death and are now living, impoverished but safe, in the outskirts of Paris, thanks to Limbo, a French nongovernmental organization (NGO). Conques and Carlinville are guided by an ethos of kindness, which begets more kindness and nurtures hope.
The film Never Look Away offers a message as enduring as the King James Bible: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law”.
By not looking away, we open our eyes and minds to the possibility of the safer, kinder world that eludes us today. That’s where we can start.
Lloyd Sederer, MD, former MH Commissioner for NYC; former CMO for the NYS Office of Mental Health; and former CMO/EVP of Harvard’s McLean Hospital.
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