I found myself crying on my commute last week after seeing the photograph of little Aylan, the three-year-old toddler drowned after the boat he was sailing in capsized, as he fled from the war in Syria. His mother and five-year-old brother were also drowned.  A woman sitting next to me on the train said: ‘I know, we have to do something.’ She’s right.

With politicians such as Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, leading the call for a ‘mature and human response’ and celebrities such as Bob Geldof writing in The Times about his ‘profound shame’: "We shouldn’t even think twice. Shouldn’t have to. England? Britain? Refusing the saddest people on Earth. The body of a three-year-old on a beach. We turn them away? Who are we? What have we become? Shame on us.”

Geldof has offered to take in four Syrian families into his homes in Kent and London. Cooper is thinking bigger: ‘What I’ve been calling for is for each city and each country to support 10 refugee families. I think we can all do that; I think we’ve all got a lot of people across the country coming forward now and saying: “Do you know what? We want to help.”

If you want to help, here’s a round-up of ways you can take action right now:

1. Urge your local council to take in 50 refugees, click here and read Jonathan Freedland's article about the crisis here

2. Sign the government petition here and join the Solidarity with Refugees march on 12 September, or one of the local marches all around the country

3. Email your MP about the refugee crisis. Click here

4. Donate money to the British Red Cross, which is running an emergency fundraising appeal to help victims of the Syrian crisis. Click here for more

5. Sign up to Refugees Welcome and invite a refugee to live with you. Click here for more

6.  Donate to CalAid to help the refugees at Calais. Click here

7.  Print out a ‘refugees welcome’ poster and put it in your window. Click here

8. Donate clothing. To find your local drop-off point to donate clothing and other items to help refugees, you can search on this map

 9. Join a Facebook group that is helping refugees in Calais. Click here

10. Donate to Doctors of the World, which is providing care to the refugees in Calais. Click here

Photograph: Corbis