April 1, 2008
Byline: Darah Hansen
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| Judy in Bangladesh From Bangladesh 2007 Photo Album |
Judy Dryden of Victoria got her first real look at extreme poverty last October while travelling in Bangladesh.
"It was difficult to see," she admitted. "The need there is huge."
But it was poverty that brought her to the tiny South Asian country to begin with, travelling with five other Canadians on behalf of the Toronto-based charity, Sleeping Children Around the World.
Their mission was to distribute 7,500 bedkits to some of the country's neediest children. Funded through donations raised back home, each kit contained a few small comforts, including a mattress, pillow, sheets, a towel, and flip-flops. But to the children receiving the gift, nothing could be finer.
"All of a sudden you'd get this huge smile and this look of, Is this really mine?'" Dryden recalled of the response.
"Most of these children," she said, "have never received anything in their lives."
The trip to Bangladesh marked the first overseas volunteer experience for the 56-year-old retired public health nurse. It won't be her last.
"I came away with a very positive feeling, like we were making a difference, " she said.
Of course, you don't have to leave home in order to positively contribute to life in the developing world.
There are, literally, hundreds of charities and non-profit organizations operating in British Columbia, all of them in need of your support.
So, if you're interested in making a difference, here are a few ideas on what you can do:
1. Buy coffee that is fair-trade certified.
What good does it do? The fair-trade symbol, certified through TransFair Canada, means the java in your cup or the beans in your cupboard have been produced under safe work conditions and that the farmer has received a fair wage, proportionate to the profit.
Why is it important? The coffee bean is the one of the world's most-traded commodities after oil, reaping huge profits margins of between 17 and 25 per cent. Yet, with a handful of large companies controlling the world coffee market, the overwhelming majority of coffee farmers and plantation workers live in poverty and famine.
Fair-trade sales currently represent less than one per cent of the global total, said Anil Hira, political science professor at Simon Fraser University. But consumers have the opportunity to boost those statistics simply by demanding the product.
"Corporations are very sensitive to these kinds of campaigns. It's essentially why Starbucks adapted to one line of fair-trade coffee," Hira said, adding, "It's one step forward."
The hope is, said Hira, "that fair trade can raise the income of enough farmers that their kids can get enough education to move on to something else."
How do I get involved? www.transfair.ca
2. Break bread for Afghan women.
What good does it do? Supported by the Calgary-based charity, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WA), Breaking Bread for Women in Afghanistan is a volunteer fundraising project to support education for Afghan women and girls by holding potluck dinners across Canada.
The goal of each dinner is to raise $750, the approximate cost of one teacher's salary for a year in Afghanistan (based on 2002 estimates).
This organization promises that 100 per cent of funds donated will be forwarded to support teachers' salaries in Afghanistan.
Why is it important? Since the project was initiated four years ago, more than 610 breaking-bread dinners have been held in Canada, raising about $800, 000.
The money has gone to support teachers at three schools in Afghanistan, and one in Pakistan (which caters to Afghan refugee children.)
In total, the schools offer education to more than 1,200 children, some of whom are orphans living on the streets, and all live in poverty. According to Janis Rapchuk, schools supported by CW4WA strive to educate children not only in subjects of reading, writing, math, science, and computers, but also in human rights.
"It's the only way for the girls to realize they do have rights," Rapchuk said.
CW4WA has 14 chapters across Canada, including one in Vancouver and one on Saltspring Island.
How do I get involved? www.w4wafghan.ca.
3. Give a kid a good night's sleep.
What good does it do? The Toronto-based non-profit Sleeping Children Around the World hand delivers bedkits and essential personal items to the world's neediest children - many of whom would otherwise be sleeping in the dirt.
The charity promises that 100 per cent of each $30 donation goes directly to a child in need, buying him or her a mattress, pillow, sheet, blanket, mosquito net, clothes, towel, sandals and even school supplies.
Why is it important? Malaria is one of the leading causes of death in children in developing countries. The situation is particularly critical in sub- Saharan Africa, where the disease, carried by mosquitoes, claims about one million lives - overwhelmingly young children - every year.
Simply by providing a treated mosquito net, clothing, blankets and sheets, a sleeping child can be protected from malaria.
The child's comfort is an added bonus. Since its founding by Murray and Margaret Dryden (parents of hockey's Dave and Ken Dryden) in 1970, volunteers with Sleeping Children - paying their own way - have personally delivered 926, 350 bedkits to children in 32 countries.
How do I get involved? www.scaw.org.
4. Write a letter to end human rights abuses.
What good does it do? Thousands of men, women and children worldwide are unfairly imprisoned, kidnapped, tortured, killed or simply go missing every year because of political, cultural or religious beliefs. Amnesty International's letter-writing campaign works to put pressure on the governments, armed political groups, companies and others to prevent and stop these human rights violations, abolish the death penalty and bring to justice those responsible for the abuses.
Why is it important? According to John Tackaberry with Amnesty International Canada, the reason to get involved is simple: "You are being the living embodiment of the importance of rights for all."
In Canada, there are currently 350 "urgent action" Amnesty campaigns underway, with volunteer chapters operating across the country, including several in Vancouver and around the province. Tackaberry said Amnesty sees positive results - measured as a specific, positive change in the human rights situation - in about 33 per cent of its cases.
"There are thousands of people who have benefited from Amnesty International's ability to intervene and write on their behalf," he said. "It does work."
How do I get involved? www.amnesty.ca
5. Start your own charity.
What good does it do? Givemeaning.com makes it easy to set up fundraising pages for walks, runs, head-shaving or whatever else you can dream up on behalf of charities, non-profits and grassroots projects. Founded in 2004, givemeaning. com has provided free online fundraising pages to over 1,200 different initiatives around the world, including several dedicated to causes right here in British Columbia.
Why is it important? "I think everybody cares about something," said Tom Williams, the Vancouver entrepreneur behind the website. "Whether your cause is something that is not celebrated by the masses, or something as broad as HIV, we all have something that tugs at our heartstrings. But we don't think that our small, individual contribution will make a difference."
Williams said he created givemeaning.com in order to pool those small contributions so that they add up to be something great. To date, the website has helped to raise over $2 million on behalf of 1,500 global and local campaigns.
"This is the only organization I know of that allows for grassroots philanthrophy anywhere in the world on behalf of any benevolent issue, from saving abused donkeys to building a school in Africa," said Williams.
How do I get involved? www.givemeaning.com
6. Publish a children's book.
What good does it do? With a strong fundraising chapter in Vancouver, the mission of San Francisco-based non-profit Room to Read is to raise communities in the developing world out of poverty by raising global literacy rates. Public donations allow the charity to work with local authors and illustrators around the world to create unique and culturally relevant children's stories in local languages. To date, about 1.7 million children have been impacted by the charity with books published in 16 different languages.
Why is it important? When Room to Read first went into Cambodia in the early 2000s, it found a country devoid of children's books, in any language. Government oppression in the 1970s had left schools destroyed and literally "decimated" the educated population, said Cindy Lang, Room to Read spokeswoman. Children's books, she said, "weren't even on the radar screen." Since then, the charity has rebuilt schools and libraries and published several children's titles in the local Khmer language. Lang said the payback for all the hard work comes when a child receives his or her first book. "It's like the most valuable thing these kids have ever seen," she said.
How do I get involved? www.roomtoread.org
7. Make a refugee family feel at home.
What good does it do? Every year about 40,000 newcomers arrive in British Columbia. About five per cent of those new arrivals have come from refugee camps around the world, arriving in Canada with nothing but the shirts on their backs. As a Friendship Host with the Immigrant Services Society of B.C., volunteers are paired with refugee families and individuals to help ease them through the difficult and often extremely stressful task of resettling into a brand new country.
Why is it important? "Just imagine taking yourself out of refugee camp after one or two decades and landing somewhere in the Metro Vancouver area," said Chris Friesen, ISS director of settlement services.
Many people, he said, find the change completely overwhelming. Language barriers make success in work and school immediately challenging. Public transit, libraries, community centres can be unfamiliar, while rights we take for granted - such as voting - can be completely foreign. Without help, many can feel depressed, lonely and frightened. In that way, the Friendship Host program is "a life-changing experience," said Friesen. "You are lending a hand to someone who is in immediate need," he said.
Of course, it's not just the refugee families who benefit from the program. Host volunteers are also positively impacted through the connection. The impact, Friesen said, is difficult to measure in monetary terms. "But," he added, "in emotional terms, it is significant."
How do I get involved? www.issbc.org
dahansen@png.canwest.com
