On Sunday, I was watching the news on a Brazilian channel with my parents and on it, there was a couple that gathered money to help dogs that lived on the streets -many couldn’t even walk and were sick and malnourished. Many criticized the couple for using the donated money to help save and improve the lives of these animals instead of helping humans who are suffering.

I understand this criticism.

It turns out Brazil has a high rate of poverty and unemployment – about 25% of Brazilians are below the poverty line but more problems accumulate.

With Venezuelans seeking refuge from the dictatorial regime of Maduro, and with refugee camps being already full, many Venezuelans now live on the streets and have to beg for food and women sometimes have even to resort to prostitution to survive.

It’s sad for both sides and both are suffering.

Animals don’t have food and are dependent on the goodwill of humans to get it. It’s sad that the situation is also true for humans as well, who are now found dependent on the goodwill of others who are better off to kill their hunger.

Sometimes we think that we can only help humans but animals also matter.

A simple definition: an act of helping one another – is known as solidarity.

Solidarity must and need to be given to all that need. Animals feel hunger and the pain of sickness and extreme hot weathers -two dogs died just in the month of January due to hyperthermia. They need help and if people are able and willing to provide it, they should. The same should applies to humans in need.

However, during one of my classes at school, we were discussing psychological concepts that have been proven true through experiments done in animals. There was a girl in my class that opposed those animals’ experiments and I agreed with her up to when she gave an alternate solution to it: humans.

A study showed that, “research subjects were more upset by stories of a dog beaten by a baseball bat than of an adult similarly beaten,” and another research showed that, “if forced to choose, 40 percent of people would save their pet dog over a foreign tourist.”

These are LIVES. And lives are important no matter whose.

I think that we are often forgetting that we are humans, that we feel, we cry, we suffer. Many humans are often undervaluing one another and forgetting the qualities that make us humans. We, humans, because we are humans, also need help when found helplessness -on the streets, suffering, hungry and thirsty.

People do not lose their humanity for helping animals but it shows that they are humans because they feel the need to help. And if humans help other humans it also proves their humanity and that they are good and kind to help one another.

Help can and should be given to all if one is willing to help because, we are all beings and we all matter.