Generosity breaks records: a temporary outburst or an attitude towards life?

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Help

, 59 million results on the internet in 0.37 seconds.

In the past four months since the conflict began, Whatsapp and Facebook groups have been created, entire towns have organized to charter buses with food, firefighters from all communities have launched expeditions.

protector

and the

have come together to bring dogs that have been abandoned during the war to Spain.

a Ukrainian living in Krakow, Poland, explains that “in general, the help has been enormous, and much of it comes from Spain.

Not only from NGOs, but also from normal people who organize themselves;

We recently received help from

Help Yemen.

27 million results in 0.55 seconds, seven years of conflict.

A country also bombed by foreign forces - a coalition of nine mainly Sunni Arab countries seeking to thus defeat the Shiite rebel forces - in which the largest cholera epidemic in history and the world's largest humanitarian crisis have been unleashed in these times, according to the UN.

One that many Spaniards are unaware of and many others have forgotten, with hardly any assistance or international media coverage.

Without wishing to place one conflict before another, the

of

towards

has been of a

never known before and that is not replicated with other peoples in situations of humanitarian or social catastrophe.

This is endorsed by both the data above and those shared by Father

with Yo Dona from Katowice, Poland, on behalf of

«Katowice is a Polish city of 320,000 inhabitants in which today there are more than 100,000 refugees.

In each house, with each family, there are people who are welcomed.

We need everything, food, basic necessities, and the first wave of help from Spain has been enormous.

Approximately 70% of what we receive comes from there.

The refugees are aware of this because many of the packages are in Spanish.

Like Lorna, Father Motek gives a name and surname to this help: «The

people from San Sebastián and Pamplona,

with his team from Barcelona.

In Galdakao,

and the great association that unexpectedly arrived with buses loaded with hygienic material.

and

who are studying in Poland and dedicating their time to helping refugees.

with his food trailer.

The almost 20 Valencians led by

who brought a truck full of food and began to cook for the refugees, and many more people».

GENEROSITY FROM PSYCHOLOGY

According to the psychologist

it is precisely putting a face and eyes to the crisis that has been able to generate this response.

"Having a lot of Ukrainians already living in the country means that there are a lot of people who have direct and indirect ties to the Ukrainian population, and people with these ties will certainly be more likely to help," she says.

According to Eurostat, before the war Spain was already the fourth country in Europe in terms of Ukrainian residents, only behind Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy.

Data from the National Institute of Statistics indicate that in 2021

56% of whom resided in three autonomous communities: Madrid, the Valencian Community and Andalusia.

Most of them work in the domestic and construction sectors.

As of April 2022, they have been joined, according to government sources, by 134,000 refugees.

A month earlier, in March,

, a resident of Badalona and mother of two children aged 4 and 5, decided to do something to help.

It was in part those

that García Vera talks about that propitiated it: it has been 12 years since a Ukrainian woman cleans in her house, her husband has also carried out several reforms in it.

Her children often play with

a neighbor whose mother,

is Ukrainian.

"Seeing the anguish on

and Kate's face was painful.

The latter sent us a list of

In the Ukraine, we went to the supermarket and between the two of us we spent 500 euros.

Later, we took everything to an institute in Barcelona where we saw how they loaded it into a van to go out that same night.

That day, she explains, her children were also aware, for the first time in their lives, of what a war entails: that people from other countries have to send you diapers, food, water and soap, because you no longer have access to this kind of things.

WHAT IF IT HAPPENED TO US?

The psychologist

believes that the phenomenon of Spanish generosity is based on the principle of similarity: our mind groups similar elements into one entity.

It is an automatic process that happens without us noticing.

“And, on

it is easier for us to experience greater

with those

in which we

somehow".

Thus, he adds, “when we observe images of Ukraine through the media, we perceive that its population shares values ​​and principles with us, has a way of life similar to ours and we group them as one of ours based on said principle.

This makes it easy to put ourselves in their shoes, since our culture is similar and we can imagine ourselves living in a similar situation more clearly than if it were a culture with which we have nothing to do.

But in addition, this principle of similarity increases the

and, thus, the importance we give to an emergency situation.

As does, also, the geographical proximity and the images of previous conflicts in Europe that are still fresh in the minds of many: «If they attack them, we see it as more feasible to

we see

our

so the feeling of threat also influences the importance we give to the contest.

This feeling is triggered not only directly from a war, but also indirectly from the consequences that the shock can have for our economy, employment, security and stability.

In a word, for

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE MEDIA

However,

director of the organization

believes that the

is largely

for the different

that emergencies arouse in us.

"When the media talk about the conflicts taking place in Africa, they do so in terms of numbers and trends, rather than the people, emotions and lives that are destroyed."

Thus, it is difficult to establish that principle of similarity that Jesús Rodríguez speaks of that causes the waves of solidarity to be unleashed.

"Media analyzes of Africa," continues Makura, "are simplistic, lack context and nuance, and prioritize sensational headlines."

Thus, this Nigerian activist believes that the global media perpetuate narratives that make people continue to divide the world's population into two blocs - the rich whites of the north and the non-rich blacks of the south - which makes this identification very difficult. to the mobilization.

According to Africa No Filter, created precisely to bring about a change in how and what is written about

, the five most important contexts in which Africa is reported are:

and

However, adds Makura, “Africa is home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world.

, for example, is a country that in the West remains synonymous with genocide.

However, the truth is that it is

at the Indian level.

Perhaps all of this should make us wonder if it is not the principle of news coverage, rather than that of similarity, that ends up defining our generosity and solidarity towards global emergency situations.

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