Team Reports |
"Hasa! Negri! Be Happy!"Brian Tuddenham – Cambridge, ON A huge number of India's one billion people live in squalor. Their water supplies are frequently far removed from home and, by Canadian standards, not drinkable. Whole families often live in one small rough-hewn room ... or in no shelter at all. Many children receive minimal schooling and face dismal and/or demeaning job prospects ... yet the children smile. India has very high rates of child malnourishment and mortality. All the girls and boys who received bedkits live in profound poverty. A significant number of them struggle with major handicaps ... yet the children smile. To travel in India is to realize how little value is placed on individual lives. Indians drive with seat belts unattached or none at all. Whole families travel by motorcycle on crowded roads with not one helmet among them. The myriad trucks are old, decrepit, minimally maintained, and driven by sleep-deprived dirt-cheap labour. India has one of the world's worst levels of serious traffic accidents ... yet the children smile. The 4,000 girls and boys to whom we distributed bedkits have no experience with store-bought toys or with playgrounds, and no computers, television, or iPods. Much of their childhood is spent in adult labour. For many of them SCAW's bedkit is the first gift they have ever received ... and they smile. It may seem that we are giving to the children but on a very real level the greater gift is the one they consistently gave to us: with adversities we can barely begin to imagine facing ... they smile. |
