We were visiting some of the successful projects implemented by Save the Children and what we saw today was truly inspirational.
It's all about education here. About teaching families how to properly care for their children. How to offer a balanced diet and the importance of regular growth monitoring in order to catch health problems early.
Save the Children has 1616 health volunteers across this district. These women are astounding. The support they offer to the community is second to none.
We met Afia Afroze who has been a health worker for six years. She's responsible for around 200 households in her area.
She has an amazing blog on the Save the Children site where you can follow her work and stay up to date with the mums and babies that she is assisting. You can even see how many steps she walks each day as she visits the children in her care.
Our next stop was to meet Mr Mamun and his family. He's something of a rarity here in Bangladesh as he shares the care of his three children with his wife. He bathes them, plays with them, feeds them and helps his wife out in their home. He's what we would call a new man. There are not many new men in Bangladesh.
He has three beautiful children, his girls pictured below aged six and two months. His baby liked me, she was cooing away and giggling. She stole my heart.
When we arrived back at the field office we were all dishevelled but full of admiration for Save the Children and the community health workers they have trained. What they are doing out here really does make a difference to the children whose lives they touch.
Seeing those close knit families living without electricity and sleeping on hard wooden beds has made me homesick tonight especially as the sporadic web connection has robbed me of a skype call to my supportive family back home.
I'm perched on top of the fridge in my room, it's the only place my dongle has a connection. I'm hot, unable to sleep and uncomfortable with my own need to fill my life with material objects. I want to be in my husbands arms after a steaming hot bath to wash the mud from my feet and the sweat and dirt from my body. It's so wrong that we have so much in our lives when so many people in the world have little more than a roof over their heads.
Please do sign the Press for Change petition.
Don't forget you can follow our trip from three perspectives; Josie's blog is Sleepisfortheweak and Eva's is NixdMin
I am loving following your blogs. Its lovely to see the kids enjoying the bubbles. Keep up the good work ladies xx
ReplyDeleteAn amazing post that captures the essence of the work that is being done in Barisal Province. The scale of the efforts of Save the Children to invoke a culture change is truly astounding.
ReplyDeleteIt is, however, the way you end the post, which made me consider this comment for the last hour.You are my wife, best friend and the only person in this world I trust enough to let through my layers.
Yes I miss you desperately. I would love nothing more than to have you in my arms and to know that you are truly safe, but I have to say that the journey you take is not one you take alone. It is so easy to passively watch poverty in other parts of the world from the comfort we call home, but it is an entirely different thing to witness it from the eyes and heart of someone you know. You have a great gift that people gravitate towards you. It is a gift I do not posses or even understand but it is there in you nevertheless. So in essence the plights of people in Bangladesh are now being made more real for thousands of people through your eyes. A life lived with very little but still one that can smile with joy at the sight of you all suddenly becomes very real for us all.
For once in my life, I do not think of myself or my loved ones. I think of the children who stand more to gain than I have to lose. So to answer, do I miss you? Desperately. Would I like you in my arms? Definately. Would I want you back here now? The answer I come up with has to be no. To see the pictures of joy on faces and to give them hope that the politicians of this world will not forget them is a good trade. (For a few days at least!) Sleep tight.
What an incredible and important adventure you're having.
ReplyDeleteAmazing post with some wonderful photos. However, it is the comments of your husband that has brought a lump to my throat and tear to my eye! How lovely to have someone as supportive and loving as him. Xx
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, beautiful photos...Thanks for keeping us posted....tears now after reading the comments, especially one. X
ReplyDeleteI've just signed the petition. Your writing and photos are both inspirational and heart breaking. And, wow, you are truly blessed to have such support at home.
ReplyDeleteWowsers. What you are doing is inspirational and those photographs are actually beautiful. Your husbands words made me a bit teary, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad you're taking the effort to do something so important. Bangladesh needs more like you.
ReplyDeleteYou are doing a great job Sian. It's good to know that the work being done out there is successful in places and does make a difference.
ReplyDeleteTeary eyed after reading this ( and your hubby's comment).