Helping Others

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Helping Others Is a Good Cause

“Never underestimate the difference YOU can make in the lives of others. Step forward, reach out and help. This week reach to someone that might need a lift”
― Pablo

Just a few short weeks ago, my wife came into my office with a concerned look on her face.

Obviously there was something bothering her so I stopped what I was doing and asked what was wrong..

She sat down opposite me and said..

“Honey, you know how you’re always helping others to get what they want – well I’ve been talking to this young guy on face-book and I’d really like to help him out.”

Really? I asked, why what is his problem and how do you think you can help?

“Well, actually it’s not really my help he needs, it’s yours.”

Go on, I said, eagerly waiting to hear what would come next. She went on to explain that this young guy Michael, was running a non-profit organization in Bugembe, Jinja in Uganda, called Sanctuary Babies Home.

Sanctuary Babies Home is the brainchild of Michael Zirintusa, a graduate of the Global Theological Seminary located in Jinja, Uganda.

Michael also serves as a Deacon at the First Baptist Church of Bugembe.  He is a married, born again Christian, currently serving as Director of Sanctuary Babies Home and has selflessly dedicated his life to helping others, particularly displaced and orphaned children.

Liz, my wife, went on to explain that this home for hurting children became a registered non-profit organization in Bugembe, Jinja, Uganda – and has been helping others since Late 2009.

Many of the children in Michael’s care came to his attention because they were suffering, orphaned, abandoned and neglected children. Most were desperately starving due to poverty.

As she told me the story of how Michael was struggling to keep these children safe, I couldn’t help but wonder how I was going to be able to help.

Ok, well I can certainly see that you have a strong desire to do something for this guy darling, but how can I help?, I asked.

“Someone has built a website for him,” she said, “but it’s not very good – in terms of functionality and content, so I was thinking that you could take a look at it and see if you could improve it for him.”

My first reaction was, “When am I going to find time to work on another website, I’m already behind on our own sites. I know I’ve always said that helping others was very important to me but I just don’t think I’ll have time darling.”

I could see the look of disappointment in her eyes and I could also see that she really really wanted me to take a look – so I reluctantly agreed to at least take a look.

What’s the url I asked and as she told me, I typed it into my search bar – as soon as the site loaded, I understood where she was coming from. At that point I knew I had to do something.

Helping Others Is A Responsibility

It is the responsibility of every good human being to help others who cannot help themselves.

I believe that everyone has a moral responsibility for helping others, who cannot, through any fault of their own, help themselves, whenever the opportunity arises.

Helping others could mean;

• giving money and/or time to the local chapter of the Salvation Army.
• volunteering at the local homeless shelter
• donating blood
• or anyone of a thousand different gestures of goodwill toward others.

I think everyone should at least try helping others who are less fortunate than they are. That’s why I agreed to completely rebuild the Sanctuary Babies Home website.

I’m actually pleased that I made that decision because during the process I’ve learnt so much about the plight of these poor children in Uganda.

It has made me realize just how lucky most of us are in comparison to the children of the world. Even on our worst days, we are more fortunate than many and that has made me a lot more determined to do as much as I can to help others in need.

The new and improved website has taken me approximately 3 weeks to complete and required a lot of additional research. The fascinating thing is the more research I did, the more I actually found myself wanting to do. You suddenly find yourself becoming more and more involved in the process and now I can honestly say that I have a real appreciation for just how hard Michael works to keep these children safe and healthy.

Benefits From Helping Others

As part of this research, I discovered that there are a number of health benefits to be derived from helping others. I’m not going to go into all of them today but I wanted to share just a couple that really surprised me personally, for example;

Helping others can actually help you to live longer.

Stephanie Brown, Ph.D., associate professor of preventive medicine at Stony Brook University in New York, reports that,

“We consistently find that volunteering and helping behavior is associated with a reduced risk of mortality,” says Brown. “We see this over and over again in prospective studies that control for other variables, such as baseline health and gender.”

For example, a study in Detroit looked at 423 married couples over age 65. They were asked if they had helped anyone other than each other during the previous year with transportation, errands, shopping, housework, childcare or other tasks. Those who did were about half as likely to die over the next five years than those who didn’t. “Now,” says Brown, “we need to find out why and how.”

She and fellow researchers have already uncovered a few clues. You can learn more about her findings .

Helping others can be useful for relieving stress!

Taking time to help someone you don’t know, first means you have to overcome your natural impulse to avoid risk. Every time you help a stranger, you are reaching out a little, and that can make a lot of people feel vulnerable. The theory is that to overcome those fears, your body releases a hormone called oxytocin, which helps you buffer stress while increasing social trust and tranquility.

This “compassion hormone,” it turns out, is very good for your body. “You are limiting exposure to stress hormones like cortisol,” says Brown. “That may be one reason why helping others is related to longevity.”

Helping others helps to keep your heart healthy.

Pulling the plug on the stress cycle is good for your heart. Research shows that having high levels of cortisol in an extended way is bad for the cardiovascular system. It’s also a good predictor of heart problems.

People who score high on hostility scales are more likely to have heart disease. It’s not so good for the brain, either. Cortisol is associated with hippocampal atrophy, which is in turn associated with dementia.

Helping others by reaching out and contributing to their lives, especially in hard times when people are anxious about economic conditions, is a very healthy thing to do.

Helping others through financial support has it’s own rewards.

Don’t ever discount your financial efforts when it comes to supporting something that you care about.

Writing a check for a good cause has benefits, too. Several studies have shown that subjects who, for example, use money as a way of helping others, feel happier than those who use money only for themselves.

Even an online contribution can create feelings of greater well-being.

The method of giving is really not important because research has proven that ‘giving’ makes people happy. Social status is often gained or enhanced by giving, people are appreciated more because they give. And by helping others in this way – those who are in receipt of the gift – often start giving too.  It doesn’t have to be much either, you don’t have to give anymore than you can comfortably afford but it starts a cycle of giving and being appreciated which, in turn, makes people happy.

Having just spent the last few weeks, researching and working on the new website for Sanctuary Babies Home, not only have I benefited directly from giving my time and energy to this worthy cause, but I have received some pretty cool stuff from others within our social group who know nothing about what I’ve been doing.

“In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.”- Flora Edwards

If you enjoyed this post, and you feel inspired to give assistance to those less fortunate than yourself – then please ‘like & share’ it so that others may benefit from learning the importance and the benefits of helping others.

Help Yourself By Helping Others
~Alan Keen~

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