Chennai, 2020: Day 2, Another 1092 Happy Children

After a short flawless flight from Chennai to Trichy, we were warmly greeted by the local Rotarians.

The second day began by separating into two separate teams.  Cheryl, Kathy, Nancy & Jim travelled to Perambular.  Theresa, Steve, and Isabelle stayed in Trichy.

Throughout the day we saw shy smiles turn to wide grins as the bedkits were handed to the children.  Timid thank yous and the confident use of a few English words brought delight to them and to us.

Thanks to fifty years of generous donors, another 1092 children have had a memorable day and a good night’s sleep.

Isabelle Parliament

Team Chennai, 2020

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Chennai, 2020: Welcome Smiles After a Long Trip

Well, after a cancelled flight and a few other speed bumps the team has arrived in Chennai from Canada and the United States. We’ve rested for a day and had to revise the schedule but we managed to greet and hand out bedkits to 832 children today in the sweltering Indian heat!

Seeing their smiling faces seemed to erase our travel misadventures and knowing that these children will all have a better night’s sleep not only brought them joy but also brought joy to the team.

Here are a few pictures of just how happy they made us!

Theresa Carravetta

Team Chennai, 2020

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Chennai 2020 - Post your comments here

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Bangladesh, 2019: Our Final Distribution - What Adventures and Accomplishments!

The distribution that started in Bangladesh on November 7th has now reached its conclusion with a final 468 children in Mirzaganj receiving their bedkits. What a journey! 

Rotary Dhaka's SKD team has achieved so many firsts with this 2019 Sleeping Children distribution. Since their modest start of 50 bedkits in 1984, approximately 180,000 bedkits have been given to Bangadesh's needy children in all areas of the country.

The generosity of Sleeping Children's donors has brought smiles, hope, and the knowledge that someone, far, far, away cares deeply for the children of Bangladesh.

Chris Hills,

Team Bangladesh, 2019

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Bangladesh, 2019: Finally Continuing our Distributions on Nov. 29

After a break since November 16th, the SKD team was in fine shape for the 1300 bedkit distribution at Gerakul.

Yet again, their use of two photo-sites proved invaluable as two streams of children were delivered smoothly and efficiently from the change rooms all the way through to the handing out of the bedkits.

The more senior students from the school were the invaluable volunteers at this site, as well as volunteers from local Rotary clubs.

The site at Gerakul was especially meaningful as this was the ancestral home of Dr Niaz Abdur Rahman, not only this year's Rotary Club of Dhaka's chairman, but he was also the second site photographer!

Great teamwork from everyone involved!

Chris Hills

Team Bangladesh, 2019

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Pune 2019: Mission accomplished!

Wow! 8,000 bed kits and 8,000 happy children! 

Can you tell by the smiles on our faces how happy we are? What a team! Everyone worked so hard and accomplished so much. Tomorrow we will be celebrating with our Rotary partners at a farewell dinner. Soon we will be home with so many memories of this wonderful experience.

Sitting, from left to right - Kay Mountford, Fran Wilson, Diane Barrick, Andrea Tynan, Cindy Hobman and standing, Archie DeGaust

Diane Barrick, Team Leader

Team Pune 2019

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Pune 2019: Visits

Today was a day of visits. We started our day visiting schools that had been selected last year to receive bedkits. The teachers of each chosen school decide which 70 children receive a bedkit, based on need.

Both schools were primary schools, grades 1-4. The children were in class when we arrived. They were so excited to see us and welcomed us with songs.

It was nice to chat with the teachers. According to them, the chance to receive a bedkit increases the child’s interest in school because they can only receive a bedkit if they are in school; and the children who receive a bedkit sleep better, which leads to better attendance and better learning.

Next, we visited the homes of some children who received bedkits last year. These visits give us a glimpse into how these children live, as well as how the family uses the bedkit items.

Our first visit was to a 2-room home shared by two children, their father and grandfather. Vaishnvi, 8 years old, used to sleep on the bare cold stone floor. Now she sleeps on her mat with blankets. Her teacher says Vaishnvi loves school and does well. School has extra importance for Vaishnvi as her mother passed away three years ago, and her teacher has become a surrogate mother to her.

Another home visit took us to a 1-room home owned by someone in the husband’s family. Six adults and two children all live together in this 8’ x 8’ room. We were happy to see the sleeping mat, blankets and clothing received last year were still being used today.

We finished our day with visits to a couple of manufacturers. We always like to see where the bedkit items are made and ensure working conditions are good and employees are treated properly.

Both businesses are family businesses, having been started by fathers and now carried on by their sons. Each employs 15-20 workers full-time, all working six days a week.

In order to produce the large quantity required for the bedkits, these businesses hired additional workers. In many cases, these additional workers were women who would sew in their homes.

A very interesting day. It was wonderful seeing the families continue, a year later, to use the bedkit items. It was so satisfying to see the bedkits provide additional employment and a boost to the local economy. Finally, it was heartwarming to hear the teachers speak of the benefits a bedkit brings to a child’s life.

Cindy Hobman
Team Pune 2019

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Pune 2019: Images from our travels through India

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. There was no distribution today, so we thought you would like to see India as we are. This is an India that you won’t see in any tourist book.

Migrant workers travelling to the farm.

Living conditions.

Ploughing the fields.

Selling socks on the street.

Apartment Building in downtown Pune

Laundry Drying

Every child deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential. Research tells us that a good night’s sleep improves health and the ability to learn. We thank all of the donors who have helped these beautiful children through your bedkit donations.

Cindy Hobman

Team Pune 2019

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Pune 2019: Interesting journeys and gratifying results

Today we were delighted to meet up with a truck full of children and parents heading to our distribution site at Supe. The children were already bursting with excitement!

We made a stop along the way to visit a very old temple dedicated to Ganesh, the Hindu Lord of obstacles.

It is always so rewarding and humbling to see the hundreds of parents and children eagerly awaiting our arrival. The distribution is planned and the children chosen many months in advance, so the excitement is palpable.

Each member of the SCAW team was given a wonderful gift of a scarf and a plaque from the education officer of the district of Baramati.

The long wait was finally over and the children and their families headed home with their gifts from our generous donors in Canada. 

The team began the long journey back to Pune, which culminated in one of the worst traffic jams we have ever seen. Two of our brave Indian friends actually got out of the van and began directing traffic, and our skilled driver wound his way through the chaos that is Pune traffic.

Namaste

Diane Barrick

Team Pune 2019

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Pune 2019: A taste of local culture

Today, we had an exciting ride through the countryside to our destination of Islampur, which was about 1½ hours from the hotel where we were staying. The country roads are narrow, which makes passing huge trucks full of sugar cane a real challenge.

When we arrived at our destination, the welcome ceremony included the turban wrapping, ceremonial dancing, and we were brought to the site on a tractor-drawn float.

The children came from many different schools in the area and some had travelled over an hour to reach the distribution. We had help from over 100 volunteers to make it a successful distribution, and 997 children were excited to receive a bedkit today.

After the distribution was finished, we were treated to a special dinner at the home of a farmer who helped with preparing the site for the distribution. We were given Puran poli which is a Maharashtra specialty.

Fran Wilson

Team Pune 2019

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Pune 2019: Witnessing the joy and appreciation

November 21

Today was a day filled with hope for a thousand recipients of the SCAW bedkit. To see the faces of so many children and their parents smile with gratitude for the gift of a SCAW bedkit is a wonderful thing for the volunteers to witness. The generosity of the SCAW givers is so appreciated. It’s is only through the photos that most donors get to see the joy and hope their gifts give.

Diane Barrick
Team Pune 2019

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Pune 2019: Raising awareness and remembering SCAW's beginnings

20 November

Today started with the realization the schedule had been more taxing for some of the team members. It was decided the prudent thing to do would be to rest up for the next leg of the distribution tour; there was much travel time ahead and thousands more kits to pass out to the many wonderful children.

Kay and Archie volunteered to represent SCAW for a midday press conference alongside our Rotarian colleagues. It was our chance to get the word out and get some name recognition for SCAW. We showed up at the press gallery with Sameer Rupani and Pankaj Apte and took our seats at the table. In the 25 or so minutes we had, we conveyed the scope and direction and depth of SCAW. Sameer and Pankaj outlined a brief history of the Rotary Club/SCAW relationship, and their roles as procurers and facilitators; describing efforts to maximize kit content, yet retaining the highest value of each item.

Kay described the story of Murray Dryden's experience in Pune, with wife Margaret, nearly 50 years ago, and the subsequent passionate legacy that developed out of which SCAW was born.

As a newcomer to the SCAW team, Archie conveyed his experiences as a newbie, and the depth of emotions that arise from witnessing the warmth of the community we serve, and are serving alongside.

We closed the press conference with a TV interview with Kay, who went into more detail of SCAW. We left feeling good about the experience, knowing there would be a little more exposure for this growing movement.

Afterwards, our Rotarian hosts treated us to a wonderful lunch, followed by a tour of St. Crispens Orphanage; the site of SCAW's first distribution in 1970. We were grateful that the head supervisor was able to take some time out of her busy schedule to show us through the orphanage and give us a little information about how it worked. As we sat at the table discussing things of SCAW, Rotary Club and St. Crispens, Sameer showed the supervisor a photo from that first distribution all those years ago. To everyone's amazement she recognized one of the young girls who was a bedkit recipient! Apparently, she was an orphan who had been brought up through St. Crispens and had graduated to become a teacher ... at the very same orphanage! To add to this great news, we were introduced to a girl in her teens who had been a recipient in 2009 for the millionth kit distribution tour!

Such a great testament to the effectiveness of both SCAW and St. Crispens. This gave us all much to contemplate.

After this profound visit we went on to visit two temples. The day ended with a delicious meal that was provided by Rotarian Shailesh Gandhi and his warm and wonderful wife and family. India is really a home away from home!

Archie Degaust
Team Pune 2019

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Bangladesh, 2019: More Distributions Later in November

Cyclone Bulbul hit Khulna shortly after we arrived at the hotel, and although it had abated somewhat after crossing land, it still came with torrential downpours and destructive gusts of wind. Streets were flooded, sheets of roofing torn off, and there were multiple power outages. Over 2 million people were evacuated.

One day's distribution was postponed, and completed the following day. As the path of the cyclone tracked through all the places we were scheduled to go, the SKD team had to reorganize their plans. Some sites became unavailable in the short term, but we completed the distribution of 6,232 bedkits. 

The remaining 1,768 will be distributed at two sites later in November. Stay tuned!

Chris Hills

Team Bangladesh, 2019

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Pune 2019: The embrace of a community

Today we traveled to a small school in Mahude, on a rough country road 70km from Pune. This is a farming population that is scattered throughout picturesque rolling mountains; a checkerboard of various crops colour the countryside, with small temples dotted along the road.

Upon arrival we were introduced to all the people involved in making this distribution possible. In Mahude this endeavour was a challenge because of the sparseness of the population; children had to be brought from outlying schools, which in this area is arduous, to say the least. We were so warmly greeted by our hosts, and were each given a wonderful headdress. To my wonderment, we were seated on carts, and ushered in by oxen who were colourfully adorn for the occasion.

The celebration that followed brought tears to my eyes, as I felt as though I was coming home from a long journey. These wonderful people offered us all they had with smiles and warmth.

Distributing the kits and ushering children to the photo area today firmly instilled a great feeling of gratitude that these people allow us into their lives to share what we have for them. The lines of giving and receiving blur in situations like these. Thank you so much Mahude!

Archie Degaust
Team Pune 2019

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Pune 2019: First day of distribution

We have traveled 12,000 km and 2 days to finally meet our first 1,000 children and their parents. It was definitely worth our effort.

As the minivan arrived in Palus, in the Sangli District, we were greeted at their school. There they were, sitting so beautiful and SO patiently.

One of the classes performed a delightful song beneath the multi-coloured canopy.

The body language and expression on the faces of the parents and grandparents was one of deep gratitude, bringing me to tears on several occasions.

Thank you, dear friends at home, who have given these beautiful children these gifts of love.

Kay Mountford

Team Pune 2019

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Pune 2019: Impressive teamwork!

Today was a day filled with community spirit, organization and cooperation. Our Pune team members helped to pack 1,000 of the 8,000 bed kits to be distributed. The other 7,000 were packed at seven other sites close to where they will be given out.

What a joy to see students, teachers, Rotary members, and our SCAW team working side by side to pack the numerous items the children will receive! First we packed the backpacks with school supplies, rain ponchos, pillow cases, washcloths and towels. Then we filled large woven carry bags with blankets, pillows, ground sheets, bedding, yoga mats, clothing, and mosquito nets. Any factory would have been impressed with our assembly lines, which kept on revolving around the room until all 1,000 kits had been assembled. Even the youngest family members joined in the fun!

Everyone was then rewarded with a delicious meal prepared by a local resident. What a great way to start our adventures here! Tomorrow we are off to our first distribution site and 1,000 happy smiles.

Diane Barrick

Team Pune 2019

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Bangladesh, 2019: Another Large and Successful Distribution

At the Akalam Muslim High School today, the team perfected the twin photo sites for handling a high volume of bedkits. 

Again, a great deal of credit must go to the volunteers who worked with the children all day long. Local Girl and Boy Scouts along with senior students from the school, took great care in guiding the children around the distribution site.

This area had been hard hit by Cyclone Bulbul.  Trees were being removed from roads, logs floated downriver for lumber mills, and firewood was being collected.

Many children were brought to the site by boat!

Chris Hills,

Team Bangladesh, 2019

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Bangladesh, 2019: A Record Day Bringing Smiles to 1300 Children

The SKD team set another record today by bringing happiness to 1300 Bangladeshi children. We were honoured to be making this distribution at Boga, the ancestral home of one of Bangladesh's heroes of the Liberation War, Group Captain (rtd) Shamsul Alam.   

For this number of children we set up two adjacent photo sites, with the children's change rooms and waiting area right next to the cameras for ease of flow. 

Thirty one cadets offered great assistance to the team, moving the children from location to location around the distribution site. Many other volunteers from Dr Yakub Sarif Degree College (the host site) made for this successful day!  

Group Captain Shamsul Alam, his brother Rezul Karim, and sister Durran, generously hosted a delicious lunch for the entire SKD team, a perfect end to a perfect day!

Chris Hills,

Team Bangladesh, 2019

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Pune 2019: Our adventure begins

The Pune India team has arrived safely! We were met at the airport by several Rotarians and are now looking forward to meeting the 8,000 children who will receive bedkits from our generous donors.

Team Pune 2019, from left to right : Fran Wilson, Cindy Hobman, Diane Barrick (Team Leader), Archie De Gaust, Kay Mountford and Andrea Tynan.

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Pune 2019 - Post your comments here

As a courtesy to our overseas team, please add your name to the end of your comments.