Published: Wednesday, 7th May, 2008 12:00
I found them so inspiring due to the resilience they show in the face of poverty
By David O'Leary
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The children of the Dhaka slums show amazing resilience
TORRENTIAL rain and 150mph winds, you could think it’s Scotland summer forecast but these were the elements that a young Galashiels woman had to deal with when a cyclone recently hit Bangladesh.
Kirsty Young, 18, a former pupil of Galashiels Academy working alongside her three friends Hannah Page, Vicki Ibbett and Anna Power, as a BMS World Mission Action Team, experienced first hand the devastating effects of Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh.
It is estimated that the storm caused the deaths of between 5,000 and 10,000 people and the evacuation of hundreds and thousands.
Over a million hectares of cultivable land was destroyed amid widespread flooding.
People of the cyclone affected area also suffered severe health problems as diarrhoea spread due to a shortage of drinking water.
The team was based in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, with a population of just over 11 million.
There they worked alongside the AG Student Centre and Compassion Schools, teaching children of the city’s slums and helping in Bangladeshi hospitals.
Kisrty said, “I heard about BMS World Mission through my local church Galashiels Baptist church. I’d felt for a long time that I wanted to go on a gap year and didn’t feel ready to enter university.”
“BMS operate in several countries and they elected to send us to Bangladesh. We arrived in the middle of October and arrived home the beginning of April. This was my first time overseas and turned into quite an experience.”
“When the cyclone arrived in Dhaka it had reduced to a large storm but many of the people we were working with had relatives on the coast where the destruction was worst.
“The electricity and power was out in Bangladesh for over 24 hours so we couldn’t contact our family to let them know that we were safe.
“I think at first we didn’t realize how powerful it would be, thankfully living in Galashiels you don’t get first hand knowledge of cyclones.
“We didn’t know what to expect. We were only coming to terms with being in Bangladesh after being there a month and then this cyclone hit.”
The team’s job consisted of working with 160 children from the slums of Dhaka.
The population of Dhaka’s slums stands as 3.4 million, according to recent figures, sanitation is a major problem and many have no access to running water.
However, Kirsty found these slum dwellers to be friendly and welcoming despite the squalid conditions.
She said, “I found them so inspiring due to the resilience they showed in the face of poverty and even more so in the wake of this natural disaster. It was an eye opener to see how the other- half lives.”
“Being back now is an almost reverse culture shock seeing so many things that we take for granted such as electricity and running water. There’s no cholera or typhoid in the Borders thankfully.
“It was amazing to see how delighted these kids were at the opportunity to be educated, especially when I remembered how fed up I got regarding school”
Whilst experiencing something as horrifying as a cyclone might put some people off returning, this is not the case for Kirsty. She views the trip as rewarding because of the valuable life lessons she learned and hopes that her story may inspire others.
She said, “I’d love to go back, we made so many friends and would love to see the improvements in the children we met and taught.
“It’s going to be a real surprising to be standing in Galashiels Academy where I only left last year. Hopefully I can inspire the pupils to make a similar decision to travel whilst helping others at the same time.
“It might sound silly but I really missed the Borders scenery because Dhaka is really polluted and filled with skyscrapers and slums, so to not have any hills or sheep around was quite odd, I really missed it.”
A hectic programme has been arranged for Kirsty and the team, which includes visits to several Border schools and local groups during the week of 5th-12th May 2008.
After that the Action Team will be on tour across the UK where they will further share their adventures.
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