Julie Helen: The suffering of children hits me at a deeper level now 

THIS week my mind keeps turning to Turkey and Syria where, at the time of writing this, more than 37,000 people had lost their lives in a devastating earthquake. There are so many thousands more left homeless without anything in the world. People in Syria were already ravaged by war. The war in Ukraine is heading for a year in length. We have many Ukrainian’s with us in Ireland and I have donated what I can to friends who are hosting families.

When I watch the stories of both the war and the earthquake, I thank my lucky stars that I don’t know what any of it feels like.

The thing that struck me about the earthquake in particular was the number of children dying. Seeing parents grabbing for the hands of loved ones under rubble almost felt too much for me to take in.

We watch the news every night at home and I have done so since I was in primary school. It is important to me to know what is going on in the world. The truth is when I look at the horrific scenes, I can turn to my three year old and reassure him that it is all happening “very far away”, which ends up being as much of a comfort to me as it is to him. Particularly since I became a parent myself I find it really hard to see reports of the suffering of children and families, it seems to hit me at a deeper level than ever before because all I can think is if it was my little boy who was dead or hurt how heartbroken I would be. I know I am very lucky that the only thing I need to do to divert from those thoughts is to flick the tv channel or go and do something else.

In my work advocating for human rights I spend a lot of time critiquing government policy, action or inaction and at times my blood can boil at disabled people being left behind in comparison to others in Irish society, however at a very core, survival and basic level we are very lucky to live where we do, where a lot of scary stuff is “far away”.

At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, due to my connections in the disability sector, we heard a lot about the hardship of disabled people in the places impacted by the war. Ireland sent a lot of equipment like wheelchairs and crutches as well as sending rescue missions with accessible busses to get disabled people out of bombed areas. We were hearing of care assistants having to leave for their own safety. Those stories have stopped now. I am sure the people left in Ukraine are doing their best, but what happened to all those people, some made it to neighbouring countries but we will never really know.

Similarly, imagine the horror you woke up in your bed and the building had crumbled around you and you couldn’t get yourself out. It really is the stuff of nightmares

For a three year old our home is a very safe place, he even thinks that “bad guys” are only on television and in movies too because in his world, all the people around him keep him safe and happy. Childhood should be a time of innocence and I am very grateful for our lot in life, that we do live in such a safe and comfortable place and I hope my worries will stay as small as they are today.