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Help children in syria: would you give away your jacket to johannes?

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Society

As a part of a new fundrais­ing cam­paign, SOS Chil­dren's Vil­lages re­leased a viral video of a little boy in Oslo, all alone and shaking from the cold. The mes­sage is clear: if you would help Jo­hannes, why don't you help mil­lions of freez­ing chil­dren in Syria? Is it be­cause they are too far away?

SOS Chil­dren's Vil­lages, an in­ter­na­tional NGO, started an un­usual video cam­paign to en­cour­age peo­ple to do­nate money for Syr­ian chil­dren. The video shows Jo­hannes, an 11-year old boy, freez­ing at a bus stop in Nor­way's capital; he has been put there on pur­pose. A hid­den cam­era records the gen­uine re­ac­tions of by­passers, and most of them are ac­tu­ally in­spir­ing and heart­warm­ing. Even though the tem­per­a­ture is well below zero, peo­ple are will­ing to give away their own jack­ets to a com­plete stranger, as long as it is a shiv­er­ing child.

The viral video is meant to sen­si­tise view­ers to the harsh con­di­tions of win­ter in Syria, where mil­lions of chil­dren and their fam­i­lies were forced to flee their homes and leave all their pos­ses­sions behind. It re­ally makes you won­der - is the fact that the shiv­er­ing chil­dren of Syria are not as in your face as Jo­hannes a good enough ex­cuse for our ap­a­thy? Of course, the spon­ta­neous an­swer would be no, but the more im­por­tant ques­tion is how many of the 6 mil­lion peo­ple who watched and shared the video of this cute little blond boy, are ac­tu­ally going to act?

Click here to find out more about SOS Chil­dren's cam­paign for Syria.