Sleeping Children Around the World

Leslie handing out bedkits.
From Chennai 2008 Photo Album

To Choose a Child

Leslie Fields — Manitoulin Island, ON

As you examine the photograph of your child from India in a clean checked-shirt and co-ordinated skirt, can you picture this little one before she left home this morning? For this is the culmination of months of planning, purchasing, sorting, packing, storing, delivering, and identifying the lucky recipients of this year’s bedkits. In south India this work has been spearheaded by the Rotary Club of Ambattur and over 120 additional clubs invited to participate this year. During the child identification process, strict criteria, based on the aims and objectives of SCAW, are followed to ensure that your gift is placed in the hands of the neediest of the needy:

The child must be between the ages of 6 and 12 and attending school;
the annual family income must not exceed 18,000 rupees;
single parent families, with the mother being the sole support, take priority;
further consideration is given if the family has been deserted by the father;
orphaned children, particularly those of the recent tsunami, have also received priority during the past few years;
only one bedkit is given per family, and that family will not be considered again for an additional five year period; and finally,
each school district is allowed to present children only once every three years.

The day before the distribution the child is given her shirt and skirt to take home. The next morning, after a restless night on a straw mat placed on an earthen floor, the family is up before daylight. Only the child receiving the bedkit and her mother will hurry to catch the bus which has been provided by the Rotarians to take them to the distribution site.

There will be no breakfast, only a token washing up, but her shining black hair will be carefully brushed and braided before she is allowed to put on her new clothes. She has no shoes to wear.

At the distribution site the mother and the child will be separated after the final paperwork is completed. The child will be given a biscuit and a drink while she waits to have her picture taken. The mother will be reminded that the bedkit is a gift from Sleeping Children Around the World, to be shared by the entire family, and that no part of it may be sold. She will also be informed that she may be visited by Rotarians or members of the SCAW team this year, or at a later date, to ensure that the articles included in the bedkit are indeed useful and being used.

At the end of a hectic morning, the mother waits at the gate for her daughter who has just been given a parcel so large and heavy that her thin arms cannot hold it without help.

We have seen this story played out 6,000 times during our trip. Once we see that the bedkit is loaded and tied on to the top of the bus and we wave good-bye we have a feeling of certainty that the bedkit is on its way to a home in great need and that we have all played a compassionate but critical role in this success story.

Chennai 2008

6,000 bedkits

To Choose a Child