By Adam Gardiner
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| MacDougald on a previous trip to Bangladesh, surrounded by some of the children he came to help. Contributed photo |
The local veterinarian is in the middle of a three-week tour in Bangladesh, where he is helping deliver bedkits to 6,000 children through Canadian charity Sleeping Children Around the World (SCAW).
“The kids that we give these to often don’t even have a place to sleep,” MacDougald told the Citizen October 21, two days before he and five other volunteers from the area departed. “So receiving this is phenomenal for the child and their family.”
The charity sends volunteers in teams of six to countries with low GDPs per capita, such as India, the Phillipines and various nations in Africa and Central America.
The volunteers use fundraising money to purchase materials for bedkits – including sleep mats, mosquito nets and bedding, as well as clothing and school supplies – at a cost of $35 per kit, and help assemble and distribute them to children in need. A charity trust fund back home pays for the volunteers’ travel and administrative costs.
“It’s a very low-cost system,” MacDougald said. “You get a lot of stuff for $35 in Bangladesh.”
This is MacDougald’s third SCAW trip – his last was a year ago – and for the first time, he’s going as team leader.
SCAW is “a longtime favourite charity” of his parents, he said, with many of their donations over the last 20 years made in his name as well as those of his children and grandchildren.
“It’s been a family charity that I now am more actively involved in through volunteer work..”
But the missions are often “gut-wrenching,” he says, because in spite of the thousands of kits teams hand out, there are always so many more poverty-stricken families to assist.
“We’re helping 6,000 kids get a little better sleep with healthier mosquito nets, and the clothing is often school clothing so we support education in that basic way. But there’s so much need.”
For his current trip, MacDougald’s team is supported by the Rotary Club of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital city. The club also coordinates with other Rotary Clubs there for support, enabling the team to carry out their work in communities across the country.
“They’re a tremendously supportive organization,” he said.
It’s a similar story back home too.
“Several people in our community are supporters of SCAW and actively volunteer and travel,” said MacDougald, adding that local resident Sue Orr will be making a SCAW trip to India next year.
Anyone interested in purchasing a bedkit can make their $35 donation through scaw.org, either in their name or that of a loved one (donations make a great Christmas gift, MacDougald says). Donors will receive a photo of the child their bedkit was given to, taken by the volunteers who make SCAW’s work possible.
“The charity operates by word-of-mouth; there aren’t mailings or follow-up calls,” MacDougald said. “It’s freewill giving…
“Like I say, $35 is real money, but boy, the amount that it actually contributes to an individual child’s well-being is significant.”
