The World Needs More Compassion

By Lara Kajs
Thinking Out Loud

Written on the final day of 2024, this reflection captures the emotional weight many humanitarian workers experienced during a year marked by record levels of displacement and the highest death toll for aid workers in history. The piece is a personal meditation on compassion, service, and the responsibility individuals share in responding to global suffering.

As we welcome a new year, I find myself reflecting on the enormous amount of suffering across the globe. The scale of human need can feel overwhelming. Where do we begin to make a difference? I am one person among eight billion—how can I possibly change anything?

Perhaps you have felt that way, too.

Yet if there is one thing the past year has taught me, it is this: the world needs more compassion. More kindness. More humanity. That is my wish for 2025—and for the years ahead.

The year 2024 was the deadliest on record for humanitarian workers. Many of us lost friends and colleagues—people who devoted their lives to helping others during war, displacement, and disaster. Humanitarians meet people on the worst days of their lives. The communities we serve have often lost everything: their homes, their safety, sometimes even their families.

This work demands faith and conviction because we witness both the best and the worst of humanity. We see the devastation caused when people choose violence, oppression, and hatred. But we also see hope—hope in the courage of survivors, in the resilience of communities, and in the compassion of those who refuse to look away.

Today, at least 122.6 million people are displaced worldwide by war, violence, persecution, and climate disasters. That number is difficult to comprehend. It is roughly equivalent to one-third of the population of the United States. Imagine if one-third of this country suddenly lost their homes and livelihoods and were forced to flee with nothing but what they could carry.

For many people, these crises feel distant—happening somewhere else, on another continent, far from daily life. But the reality is stark: more than 120 armed conflicts are currently taking place across nearly fifty countries. And in nearly every conflict, it is civilians—especially women and children—who suffer the most.

Every crisis calls for attention, empathy, and action. When violence spreads beyond battlefields into neighborhoods, hospitals, and homes, the human cost becomes almost impossible to comprehend. In some places today, including Gaza, civilians face conditions that are among the most dangerous in the world.