Paul Levitz, Treasurer of PROOF’s Board, explains how even playing a small role can make all the difference in the world.
Most of us sit at home, and our imaginations stay there with us. Occasionally, we allow ourselves to daydream of vacations to the beautiful spots on the globe…the lights of Paris, the ancient ruins of Angor Wat, or even the plans of the Serengeti. But it is the rarest of us that even think about the hellholes of the world, where death and misery are being brought about by man’s hostility to man. And if we do, we shake our heads in bewilderment, a little sympathy, a little puzzlement, and return to our lives. Even if we could help, with problems this large, what can one person, or worse, one check do?
PROOF makes it possible for us to do something. The power of the camera to document, to inform, to teach…and even, to shame…is an awesome weapon that PROOF wields well. Assembling exhibits, documentaries, and programs that use the captured images of genocide and other human rights crises, PROOF has gone out to demonstrate that ordinary people make extraordinary differences in crisis situations. People cross ethnic cleansing lines to save strangers, and become The Rescuers…children walk across a continent to reject being the Child Soldiers of Africa, and forge new lives…and simply listening to their stories inspires others to help heal the world.
Not all of us are born with the courage to do these things…I wasn’t. I’m a storyteller, comfortable at a keyboard in my home, sending my mind’s eye abroad to roam. But my imagination isn’t vivid enough to conjure the pictures that PROOF takes. I’m a teacher, at ease in a classroom of diverse young people. But my skills don’t extend to figuring out what I could teach children living in such challenging conditions. And I’ve been an executive, used to devising plans to create change. But I never had to face such adversity and try to improve it.
So when I met Leora Kahn, and her small band of photojournalists, documentarians, and impossibly brave travelers, I was moved to enlist, and do what I could. Standing in the lovely lobby of the U.N. General Assembly, looking at photos of the child soldiers that were simultaneous beautiful and more horrifying than anything in my life’s experience, I wanted to help.
I made out a check.
I showed up at an auction, and wrapped pictures.
I wrote a few words to help communicate PROOF’S mission.
I connected Leora with other decent people.
It’s all good, and it’s all not good enough. I’ll never do the amazing things she does out in the field, or that people she’s inspired do every day as a result, in the impossible places I won’t even visit. But I’m doing what I can.
Try it. You can sit at home and still help heal the world, by empowering the people who are willing to go out and bring back evidence of the world’s calamities, and of the heroes who help lessen them. If we are to stop the tragic human rights crises that dot the globe, we must first understand them, and rally ordinary people and governments to action. You may not be the field soldier in this war on injustice, but you can still serve the cause by donating a few dollars or a few hours.
I once had the pleasure of being told by a Bosnia mayor that he had watched a comic book I had worked on save a child’s life, by keeping them out of a live mine field. I played a small role in the creation of that particular comic—others had literally bounced through mine fields in armored cars, or jousted with governments and NGOs alike to produce it—but it was still one of the proudest moments of my life. Play a small role in making the world a better place through PROOF’S good work…I recommend the feeling.
