There was one thing that struck me watching the news about the tragic tsunami events of the past days in which over 150 000 people have lost their lives.

"There is no time for grief," said one survivor whose entire family was washed away. "We have to begin again and rebuild."

What courage in the face of such despair. What resilience. What a testament to the human spirit.

The other heartening thing is the way in which the world has responded to the disaster casting aside all the differences -
political, religious, racial - that normally keep people apart.

Everyone is pulling together to bring relief to those who have been devastated and this too is a tribute to the human spirit.

Ordinary people are helping others in the most remarkable way and everywhere, the best is being brought out.

As everyone knows, it is the living who desperately need relief and to compound matters, delivering this relief is a severe logistical challenge.

Distances are far, areas are remote and over and over again, whole communities have been virtually wiped out leaving a just a few survivors.

The tales of some who have survived are miraculous.

The baby floating on a mattress, the 9-month toddler found bobbing in a small boat, the fisherman found alive under his overturned boat a week after the event, the villager pulled from the rubble of his home ...

Everyone who has been watching the coverage will have been moved by the magnitude of the events.

I believe one cannot and should not compare disasters.

Instead, we must do exactly what we are doing today. Help, be pro-active, make a plan and try to make a difference and rebuild.
And with the same spirit of resilience, I believe we can help, be pro-active, make a plan and try to make a difference here at home.

Just extend our feelings and our purse strings and look around us at the disaster zones in our own backyards let alone on the rest of the continent.

The number of child-led families runs into the thousands and is growing because of the devastation caused in our communities by Aids.

The number of impoverished people unable to find jobs and become sustainable is growing as is the number of orphans, of poor and starving people.

We cannot shut our eyes to the genocide occurring in Dafur and yet we do. Just a few countries away, yet it's as if the refugees of the Sudan do not exist.

"There is no time for grief," just to reiterate the words of the survivor whose entire family was washed away. "We have to begin again and rebuild."

This, I think must be our mantra for 2005. To be touched by disaster shows that thankfully, we are still alive.

It is irrelevant what baggage we carry, what religion, colour or political stance we adopt. Think about it, all these things are happenstance.

You are born a Buddhist in Thailand, a Daoist in China, a Muslim in Palestine a Jew in Israel, a Christian in Sweden ... it is chance.

The only definite is that you are a human being and it is as human beings that we should all pull together.

I looked at that villager somewhere in a remote and inaccessible part of Sri Lanka and felt humbled by his courage and determination.

It's the beginning of a new year and we're all making resolutions, some more serious than others.

Each one of us has the capacity and the ability to make 2005 better for somebody else even if it's in the smallest way.

Let's do it.

• This is Carol Lazar's column, published in The Star.