Volunteer/Contribute
If you recognize your family resemblance to the poorest children in the poorest region of the world, and have an interest in making a permanent difference in their lives, we would like to hear from you. We welcome donations of money, of course, but we also welcome contributions of goods, services and time. Please don’t hesitate to make any enquiry at amaroksociety.org@gmail.com.
However, to save us both a little time…
… if you are actually hoping for an exotic vacation at Amarok Society’s expense, we’re unable to help you; anyway, no one has ever mistaken Dhaka for Holiday Heaven, and you wouldn’t, either;
… if you are interested in paying many thousands of dollars to travel to a poor village to dig a hole the villagers could have dug for themselves (poor villagers can learn how to sink a well just as readily as you can), there are several agencies anxious to help you, but Amarok Society is not amongst them;
… if you are interested in paying $800 for an $8 third-world goat, there are, likewise, many agencies eager to take advantage of your goodwill, but Amarok Society is not one of them;
If, on the other hand, you have genuine, applicable skills and meaningful amounts of time (or if you or your business has goods or services) to contribute, you’ll find us most responsive and grateful. You should be able to construe, from our website, whether your skills, goods or services might be useful to our undertakings.
Please note that, to avoid the ‘voluntourism’ with which we obviously and decidedly disagree, we like to see a record of contribution of time and effort to our Canadian activities before engaging a volunteer in overseas activity.
Below is an excerpt from a wonderful account, by one of our devoted friends, of her Bangladeshi experience:
Out on the Skinny Branches of Life
by Jill Varley
Someone once told me that, now and then, it’s important to climb right out to the skinny branches of life. I took this advice to heart this year and came to Bangladesh for a seven week volunteer experience with Amarok Society schools.
Nothing in my past had really prepared me for this journey. My heart was pounding on the cold Montreal winter day when I made my way to the airport. My only plan was to keep my heart and my mind open, and to contribute in any way I could.
Then again, can you prepare for a city like Dhaka? The city is a five-alarm fire for all the senses. As I perch precariously on the colourful but flimsy rickshaw behind the tiny rickshaw wallah, he drives right out into on-coming lanes of thundering buses, armoured SUVs and over-loaded trucks. To defend us, he holds up a thin brown hand and rings a small bell. I am sharply aware, for perhaps the first time, of the frailty of human life. Including mine!
Turning into the narrow alleyways of the slums, the rickshaw begins to expand in the narrow roadways lined with tiny shops selling vegetables or sacks of rice or hand-made luggage or plastic buckets. No longer a delicate matchbox behind a bicycle, it has grown into a chariot with a most outlandish creature on display. Every man, woman and child forgets the initial reason for being in the street, and turns to stare in shock at the unfathomable spectacle approaching.
The same questions are clearly etched on each face: what on earth can that be? Is she lost? Can she really be so tall? In my mind’s eye, I replay the moment of first contact from every science fiction movie I’ve seen. My spaceship has indeed landed me in this slum in Dhaka; don’t worry, I am friendly! And so, it turns out, are they.
Tanyss, and her daughter Grace remove their sandals and lead the way into the crowded, square little school room where the student mothers and their youngest children squeeze together on the mat covered floor.
As I settle onto the low stool at the front of the classroom beside Tanyss and Grace, I look back at the dark, intelligent eyes before me. They emerge from flowing colourful clothes that swirl around shoulders and over heads. I am struck by the beauty of these women with their long silky hair arranged so carefully. Later, it is their perseverance and good humour that win me over completely.
When we walk to visit the houses of a few mothers after class, we are chaperoned by a parade of children marching alongside us, vying to hold Grace’s hand. I abandon my sandals and stoop again to
enter a small, dimly lit room. The large bed with a heavy wooden frame overwhelms the small space.
I sit on the bed and listen to the warm but impenetrable sounds of Bengali as the mother exchanges with her teacher. I ponder the fact that this family of five lives together in this tiny room. The two gas burners outside the door are shared among several mothers who must cooperate so that each can prepare her family’s meals.
Part of me still wants to look away from the gulf of poverty that we allow to exist between people in various corners of the world.
Later, I try to express my discomfort when I talk about this with my fellow Canadians. Young Grace gently nudges me away from any angst-ridden inertia. “I don’t worry much about how things make me feel. I just focus on what we can do.” Point taken!
The mothers in these neighbourhood slums have now been given half a chance to receive the education they were denied as children. And they are rising to seize this opportunity with one hand, while the other pulls a few children right along with them.
My volunteer experience with Amarok Society has given me an alternative to feeling hopeless in the face of the poverty of Bangladesh and the world. I have seen that through Amarok Society, Canadians are making a direct, cost-effective and life-changing difference. I think that Grace is right. Through simple acts of generosity, we can help these mothers create new worlds of possibility for themselves and their children.
Jill Varley spent seven weeks in Bangladesh working hard for Amarok Society.
For Schools/Teachers: our Children Adopting Mothers program
As a country, Bangladesh is most often ignored or overlooked by media, but is a fascinating land in its own right. Amarok Society would be happy to help Canadian teachers to tell their students about:
• its transformation from East Bengal to East Pakistan;
• how the Bangla Language Movement sparked the Liberation War;
• George Harrison’s role in bringing Bangladesh to the world’s attention;
• what life is like there now for children or youth their age, for families – the challenges and struggles and the success stories.
• its struggle to remain a moderate Muslim nation in a world of increasing polarization.
Bangladesh is full of interesting facts. For instance, did you know that Bangladesh has the highest population density in the world? If every person in the world moved to the US, it would still be less densely populated than Bangladesh. With a landmass 1/8th the size of Ontario, and with many areas regularly flooded (it’s the world’s biggest delta), the population of 150 million makes for crowded living. It’s also the country most seriously threatened by the possible effects of global warming.
Amarok Society invites you to learn something new about Bangladesh by involving your class, school and the school community in our ‘Children Adopting Mothers’ projects. Your involvement will help to change lives of acutely poor families by helping us to teach mothers to become neighbourhood teachers who in turn provide education to thousands of children. In addition to ideas you or your students may develop, we have developed a package suitable for elementary schools, with one event for each of the three seasons of the school year:
• Autumn: hold a ‘Moms and Apple Pie’ event where participating families can be asked to provide apple pies or other baked goods for sale.
• Winter: have a theatrical evening. We have written a short, humourous, but meaningful play, “When Wendy/Wendell Woke Up in the Third World” that can be staged by upper-grade elementary students.
• Spring: sell Mothers Day cards. We have unique cards featuring some of our mothers and their babies.
• and late winter for secondary school students: sell flower bulbs (in malls and elsewhere) to be germinated in time for Mothers Day.
Watch this short video of Grace Munro (a student herself) telling other Canadian students why they should get involved with our Mothers of Intention schools.
For teachers wanting to find out more about life in Bangladesh for the very poor women in the slums, we have a highly engaging book of true short stories, South Asian Adventures with the Active Poor (100% of profits go to Amarok Society). You can order it at: Tangent Books This book is also appropriate for students in grades 6 and up.
