By Susan Hundertmark, Seaforth Huron Expositor
The Seaforth man volunteered to take on the responsibility of team leader and just returned from his first of many trips over the next three years to the Phillipines.
“These trips are beautiful and tragic all at the same time,” says Hills, adding that a $35 bed kit can improve living conditions for an entire family in the Phillipines.
Sleeping Children Around the World was founded in 1970 by Murray and Margaret Dryden, of Etobicoke, who wanted to see every child in the world benefit from the comfort of a good night's sleep. The bed kits provide a mat or mattress to get a child off the concrete or dirt floor, a pillow, sheet, blanket, mosquito net, five t-shirts, three pairs of shorts, a rain poncho, a towel, flip flops and school supplies and are made in the countries where they are distributed to support the local economy.
“Murray started the organization after tripping over a child sleeping on pavement and he thought that he could help that child get a better night’s sleep, he could do better at school and be more successful,” says Hills of the organization’s beginnings. “I met a guy who still had his blanket and bed mat from a bed kit he got in 1998 – he’d been through university with it. The fact that somebody did something for him changed something for him. ”
In the Phillipines, the children who receive the kits are living in 10-foot by 8-foot tin shacks with dirt floors and no running water or toilet. Many of the families earn enough to spend $1 a day on the family’s food.
“They live in absolutely desperate circumstances and it’s quite tragic when you talk to the parents. They are dirt poor and get embarrassed talking about it,” he says, adding that Sleeping Children representatives talk to the families to find out what they can add to the bed kits that would be helpful.
“In the Phillipines, they all said Vitamin C because they can’t afford fruit. They eat mostly rice and sometimes fish. All these mangoes and beautiful fruit around them and they can’t afford it,” he says.
While the Sri Lanka trip took Hills took a rural area where the residents were subsistence farmers, in the Phillipines, he saw poor urban families who can’t grow their own food.
Hills and his team, which included Sharon Flanagan, of Mitchell, helped to distribute 6,000 bed kits during their most recent trip.
While each family will only receive one bed kit, Hills says the mosquito netting, which is specially treated with insect repellant, is large enough to cover most of the dwellings the families live in.
“I saw one family of seven living in the space the quarter of my kitchen. We don’t realize we’ve won life’s lottery living here in Canada,” says Hills.
Describing the slums as “totally Dickensian,” he says he’s still never seen happier children than those living in the slums of the Phillipines.
“They didn’t beg – they just wanted to be picked up and hugged,” he says. “In the slums, they still have their family around them and family is everything there.”
As team leader, Hills has the job of taking photographs of each child who receives a bed kit and them sending those photos to the donors who are usually in Canada or the U.S. He points out that 100 per cent of the $35 donation that buys a bed kit goes directly to the bed kit, none of it to the administration of the organization.
“Photography is accountability – it shows where the money went. Everyone gets a photo with a bed kit with their name on it,” he says.
While there’s more work and responsibility in the role, Hills says the perk is more opportunity to travel and distribute more bed kits. He will distributes thousands of bed kits over the next three years but points out that the actual number will depend on the number of donations the organization receives.
“My only regret is I didn’t start doing this sooner,” he says. “It does give a lot more meaning to life. It’s good for everyone to go somewhere else in the world so they can appreciate what they have.”
Because he and his wife Gail made several speaking engagements after returning from Sri Lanka, Hills says he is available to spread the word about the work of Sleeping Children Around the World to any interested groups in Huron County.
“The expectation is that you’ll spread the word,” he says.
Chris Hills can be contacted at kithills@hotmail.com or 519-522-1913.
