 Team Reports |
Connecting with the ChildrenGlenn Barenthin — King City, ON In his novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini said that in Afghanistan there are many children but little childhood. These same words describe well some of the areas we visited on our distribution in Kolkata. Our job was to bring a little comfort by delivering bedkits to these children
The question was how to approach and introduce ourselves to this sea of children. How does one break the ice, so to speak, when meeting children from a different culture speaking a different language? Tom, our team leader, led the way by jumping right in and encouraging everyone to deliver high fives and low fives. Others, such as Susan and I, chose to test the waters first and introduce ourselves with handshakes and smiles. Alan brought laughs to the faces of the children by applying copious amounts of suntan lotion to his nose. Jill got everyone moving with calisthenics, while Marne amazed the kids with photos from an instant camera. Regardless of our individual approaches we certainly did connect with the children and thanks to all the wonderful people who donate to Sleeping Children Around the World we were able to bring some comfort and share many laughs with these beautiful children. |
This being my first time with SCAW, I was overwhelmed on the first day by the hundreds of enthusiastic children waiting patiently in the hot sun for us.