Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 217

HONY Stories comes out in less than one week! I’ve already...

HONY Stories comes out in less than one week! I’ve already said a lot about the merits of the book. So I want to take a quick opportunity to remind everyone that HONY is advertisement free and almost entirely financed by book sales. (The only exception being income from a handful of speeches I give every year.) Proceeds from books have been used to pay for trips to twenty different countries over the past year alone. Even when working with large organizations like the United Nations or UNHCR, I’m always very careful to cover all costs and reimburse any expenses. I do this so that the content on HONY can remain entirely independent, self-directed, and transparent. By purchasing a book, you can help HONY continue to grow in a way that remains focused on telling people’s stories— and nothing else. Thanks to everyone for your continued support.

HONY: Stories can be preordered now for 40% off:
AMAZON: http://amzn.to/1aXqwEk
BARNES AND NOBLE: http://bit.ly/1KCQeOt
INDIEBOUND: http://bit.ly/1GUl4L6

Thanks to everyone for following along these last two weeks as...

Thanks to everyone for following along these last two weeks as we learned the stories of refugees migrating across Europe. I hope that you’ve learned along with me that each refugee carries a tragically unique story often filled with violence and fear. Many of you have asked about the best way to help. There are plenty of wonderful NGOs working to assist refugees, but you cannot go wrong supporting the UNHCR. Money donated to the UNHCR goes directly to providing food, water, and shelter to desperate people. The UNHCR is on the ground all over the world, often in dangerous and difficult places, providing essentials to people who have no government or state to protect them. This is why the UNHCR has won two Nobel Peace Prizes. Currently the resources of the UNHCR are stretched to the limit, and sometimes the organization is only able to make a tissue thin difference. But often it is the difference between life and death.

Quite wonderfully and coincidentally, Kickstarter launched a campaign this morning to support the UNHCR. It’s the very first charity campaign that Kickstarter has ever done. I encourage anyone wishing to make a difference in the refugee crisis to donate there: https://www.kickstarter.com/aidrefugees

“I’m sixty-two years old. I was a government clerk in Baghdad....

“I’m sixty-two years old. I was a government clerk in Baghdad. I heard from a neighbor that one of the militias was planning to kill me. The militia thought I was passing along information to the government. It wasn’t true, but these are not educated people. They don’t have rules. They don’t listen to reason. I had to leave or they would kill me. I couldn’t afford to bring my family with me. I didn’t even say goodbye. I snuck away in the middle of the night because I couldn’t stand to see my children cry. I’m all alone here. I look around, and I see everyone else with their families. I only have one cot.” (Salzburg, Austria)

“I lived in Mosul for five months under ISIS. I tried to avoid...

“I lived in Mosul for five months under ISIS. I tried to avoid trouble but one of my neighbors reported me for shaving my beard. They came to my house while I was sleeping. My mother answered the door and they pushed her out of the way and dragged me out of bed. They asked me why I’d shaved my beard. I didn’t know what to tell them. They dragged me into the center of the city and made me kneel next to five other men. They called out on loudspeakers for everyone to come and watch. A large crowd gathered. The faces in the crowd seemed sad but they had no choice but to watch. ‘These men are atheists,’ they said. ‘And they will be punished.’ They took off my shirt and put a blindfold on me. They said that anyone who tried to go to the hospital afterward would be killed. I was the fifth one to be whipped. I could hear the men before me scream out in strange voices. When the first lash hit me, the pain was so bad that it felt like my soul left my body. They lashed me twelve times. I lost consciousness before it ended and woke up in bed.” (Salzburg, Austria)

“They told me to meet them at a certain address with the money. ...

“They told me to meet them at a certain address with the money. It was an old abandoned house. They told me to wait for a silver car to come, and to throw the money inside. After a few minutes a car came. I threw the money inside and it drove off. Soon another car pulled up, the door opened, and my son was thrown out. I didn’t believe it was my son. It was like I was born again. I picked him up and I started running and I didn’t stop until I reached a place full of people. Both of us cried as I ran.” (Hegyeshalom, Hungary)

(3/3)

“After they took our son, my wife was so weak that she...

“After they took our son, my wife was so weak that she couldn’t get out of bed. For days I walked around Baghdad like a crazy man. I could not sleep. I walked from early in the morning to late at night. I thought maybe I’d recognize the car if I saw it again. Every day I picked a new neighborhood. I kept my phone in my hand hoping that someone would call. Every few seconds I’d check the screen. Soon I lost hope. I was sure that I’d lost my son. Then after one week an envelope came to the house with a phone number inside. I called the number and a man told me that he had my son. He said he wanted a large amount of money. He said if I called the police, my son would die. It took me twenty days to get the money together. I sold the house. I borrowed money from relatives. Days would pass between phone calls. I kept begging for more time. They kept changing SIM cards so I couldn’t call back. When I finally got the money, I told them I was ready to meet, but I demanded to speak to my son. I told them: ‘Please, I need to hear his voice. I need to hear his voice.’ Then suddenly I heard my son’s voice on the phone. He sounded very scared. He said: ‘Dad?’ Then the phone was disconnected.” (Hegyeshalom, Hungary)

(2/3)

“Every month we had to go to Baghdad to get my son’s eyes...

“Every month we had to go to Baghdad to get my son’s eyes treated. When we went for his last appointment, the hospital was very crowded so we decided to go back to the hotel and wait. We walked out into the street and waited for a taxi. A car pulled up and stopped. We thought it was the police. Two men with guns jumped out and asked for our ID cards, then they pushed us into the car. After a few hundred meters, my wife and I were tossed into the street. But they kept my son.” (Hegyeshalom, Hungary)

(1/3)

“I studied to be a teacher, but I’m young, so I knew I’d be...

“I studied to be a teacher, but I’m young, so I knew I’d be forced to fight. I don’t like fighting. I don’t like blood. But I was the only one working so I couldn’t leave or my family would go hungry. But my mother begged me to leave. She kissed my feet. She said she wouldn’t mind starving if she knew that I was safe. I hired a smuggler but he took all my money and left me at the border. He told me that he’d call me when the passage was safe, but then he turned off his phone. I was all alone and stuck without money. I called my mother and she said that she’d pray for God to send someone to help me. Then I met this man. I told him my story and he loaned me the money I needed to get to Europe. He treated me like one of his family. I’ll pay him back when I get to Germany, but until then I’m trying to return the favor by helping him carry his children.” (Vienna, Austria)

“My father loved children. But I was his favorite because I...

“My father loved children. But I was his favorite because I was the small one. Whenever we did something wrong, everyone else got punished except for me. When I was fifteen, he took us on a shopping trip to Baghdad, and he told us to wait in the car while he ran into a market. We heard a loud explosion. We got out of the car and ran toward the sound. Body parts were everywhere. My father’s body was lying on the ground with his head split open. Part of his brain was on the street. I was young and naïve. I remember thinking: ‘It will be OK. He just needs an operation.’” (Vienna, Austria)

“The army searched our house six times. The first two times...

“The army searched our house six times. The first two times they knocked on the door. The next four times they kicked in the door in the middle of the night. They hit my wife. They shocked me with an electric baton. And my children had to witness all of this. The psychology of my children changed before my eyes. I stopped getting hugs and kisses. They used to watch cartoons and play normal games. Now they only played games related to war. They’d chase each other around the house, shouting: ‘I’m going to kill you!’ I tried buying them an educational kit with cardboard squares and triangles and circles. When I left the room, they broke the shapes and turned them into guns.” (Hegyeshalom, Hungary)