The first Togo distributionClarence Deyoung— Halifax, NS 
After months of preparation, the first Togo team from Sleeping Children Around the World [SCAW] was landing in Lome, the capitol of Togo. The long wait to experience the culture and to meet the children and our new Overseas Volunteer Organization [OVO] would soon be over. We headed off in our rented bus. The smells, the traffic, the one-room shacks with maybe one dim light, the roadside stands, all reminded me of Asian and south/central American countries I had visited. In the days to follow it became obvious that SCAW had made the right decision to come here. In most villages, the local people had never seen a North American or European person, had never had their picture taken, and had never received a gift like the one they received from SCAW‘s donors. In a country where malaria is rampant, when the parents were asked if they had mosquito nets for their children, not one hand went up. The parents were in awe at the sight of the children walking away with their bedkits on their heads — including a Long lasting insecticide impregnated mosquito net [LLIN].  This first distribution would not have been possible without the assistance of our new OVO, Action Enfance et Développement Togo [AED-Togo], under the watchful eyes of Kouma and Victor. AED-Togo’s primary goal is to assist families affected by AIDS. Things they do include:
What a great children-focused organization to be our partner. Many of its volunteers were students in high school or university who made some of the items in the bedkit, assembled them, and helped to distribute them. While visiting some of the one-bedroom homes where recipients lived, I couldn’t help but think: these children are living in the same conditions that Sleeping Children's founder, Murray Dryden, saw when he handed out the first fifty bedkits in India over thirty-five years ago. Let’s hope that, in the near future, we can help as many children in Togo as we‘ve helped in India since Murray first distributed there in 1970. |
