Participants:
Series Code: HIM
Program Code: HIM001100S
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00:07 Child Impact International is an organization giving hope.
00:11 Previously called Asian Aid, 00:13 Child Impact International is an organization fostering 00:16 permanent positive change 00:18 in the lives of disadvantaged children 00:20 and their communities. 00:21 Child Impact is committed to making a difference 00:24 in the lives of children and those who are in need. 00:27 Serving communities in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, 00:31 Myanmar, and will soon expand to other countries. 00:34 For the last 50 years, 00:36 Child Impact has invested in the futures of people 00:39 and their investment is proving infinite returns, 00:42 driven by the dedication 00:43 to helping those who have the least. 00:45 Child Impact is an organization 00:47 focused on the welfare of children, 00:49 implementing diverse development projects 00:52 and sponsoring thousands of children. 00:54 Their outreach expands from child rescue operations, 00:57 to providing an education for orphans, 00:59 deaf, and the blind children 01:01 giving them a sense of place, 01:03 a home, but above all, 01:05 Child Impact is an organization giving hope, 01:08 giving hope to children, 01:10 giving hope to communities, 01:11 giving hope to the ones who needed the most. 01:14 This is Hope in Motion. 01:22 Imagine if Florida suddenly contained 01:25 half the population of the United States. 01:28 A situation like that exists in Bangladesh, 01:31 a country roughly 01:32 the same size as the Sunshine State, 01:35 but with a population of 165 million. 01:41 Situated between India and Myanmar, 01:44 the South Asian country was formally a British colony 01:47 and later part of Pakistan, 01:49 but won its freedom in a bloody war 01:51 of independence. 01:56 In the years that followed, 01:57 Bangladesh suffered from chronic poverty, 01:59 catastrophic cyclones 02:01 and despite being largely agrarian, 02:04 food insecurity. 02:10 Bangladesh culture is centered 02:12 around the practices of the Bengal region, 02:14 which crosses several national borders, 02:17 but it is centered on Bangladesh. 02:21 Today, Bangladesh is changing. 02:23 Each year more and more people 02:25 move to urban centers to work 02:27 in new industries like textiles, 02:29 which account for 77% of the country's exports. 02:35 But there are still persistent issues 02:37 which plague the country. 02:40 A majority of women are placed into 02:42 forced marriages under the age of 18, 02:45 many under 15. 02:47 And 40% of Bangladeshi citizens 02:49 are categorized as being in a state of hunger, 02:53 with some facing starvation. 02:58 Education while improving 03:00 also presents challenges to the country, 03:03 which has one of the lowest literacy rates in Asia 03:06 and presents unequal educational opportunities 03:09 for girls. 03:19 Around 80% of the population is Muslim, 03:22 with a further 15 to 20% practicing Hinduism, 03:26 Christianity accounts for a fraction 03:29 of a percent of adherence. 03:31 And of the 165 million people in Bangladesh, 03:35 a mere 30,000 are Adventists. 03:39 That's 0.0002%. 03:48 It is in this setting that 03:50 we chronicled the successes and struggles 03:52 of Kellogg Mookerjee Memorial Seminary, 03:55 an Adventist boarding school in South Bangladesh. 03:59 The trip took eight hours passing through the river 04:02 and taking inner roads to make our way to KMMS. 04:06 The school is only 80 miles 04:08 from Dhaka, the capital, but road conditions 04:10 and the immense width of the Padma River 04:13 make the journey something for visitors to remember. 04:19 We went to Bangladesh to show how Child Impact 04:21 has been making a difference in their country, 04:24 and just why they are in need of a lot of help. 04:27 Like many countries that are leaving poverty, 04:29 Bangladesh has a rise in education 04:32 and improvements with their poverty, 04:34 which has dropped 20% in the last 20 years. 04:37 The country still has extreme poverty plaguing 04:40 more than half the population. 04:43 Education is one way to help change that. 04:46 Education is rare in Bangladesh, 04:48 and even if children go to school, 04:50 it doesn't mean they will have a chance 04:53 of getting a good education that can help them. 04:57 Jim Rennie, 04:58 the CEO of Child Impact International joined us 05:01 on that journey and discovered 05:03 the many ways Child Impact sponsorship 05:05 is changing children's lives in Bangladesh. 05:10 So, this morning, 05:12 the reality of life here in Bangladesh 05:15 and I guess what we experience really sort of hits your heart. 05:20 You suddenly are faced with the struggles in life, 05:24 you're faced with the poverty, 05:27 and I think it's things we fully don't understand. 05:41 Bangladesh families have long adapted 05:43 to a different way of living, 05:45 one where children have to quickly learn 05:47 manual labor in order to help the family survive. 05:56 Around 4 million children work from the ages of 5 to 14. 06:01 Their lives begin harsh and they usually 06:04 have no way of making time for school 06:07 due to the cost of education or simply just surviving. 06:11 This is where major help has come in. 06:15 Kellogg Mookerjee Memorial Seminary 06:17 or KMMS as it is known to locals 06:20 was founded in 1920 as Gopalgonj Boys' School, 06:25 and was the first Adventist mission in Bangladesh, 06:28 which was called East Pakistan at the time. 06:32 Nine years later, 06:33 the school became co-educational 06:35 and now cares for over 400 students. 06:42 These students come 06:44 from all districts of Bangladesh, 06:46 and in Bangladesh 06:47 we have around 64 districts, 06:53 and many students are coming from Hill Tracts. 06:57 Many are coming from north, south, east and west, 07:01 and we have more than 10 ethnic groups, 07:04 the school, and the school is open for all people. 07:08 Even we have students from all castes, Catholic, 07:12 Baptist, Oxford, Methodist, Adventist, 07:16 we have also students from many Hindu backgrounds, 07:20 and we have very few students 07:22 from Muslim background. 07:25 At KMMS students are housed, fed, given a broad education 07:30 that includes English 07:31 and protected from many of the issues 07:33 that plague children growing up in rural poverty. 07:37 And at the center of the mission KMMS 07:39 provides children access 07:40 to the Adventist message in a region 07:42 where even the concept of Christianity is little known 07:45 or understood. 07:47 We have, we do group meeting, Tuesday, 7 o'clock, 07:52 and we have also vesper meeting Friday, 6:30, 07:56 and we have a Sabbath school at 9 o'clock. 07:59 We have a divine service, 11 o'clock, 08:03 and we have AY Youth program, 5 o'clock. 08:09 The large campus contains a variety of facilities 08:11 that help the school to operate. 08:14 These facilities could be leveraged 08:16 to help the school reach greater independence 08:18 in the future. 08:20 Income generating project like our fish farm. 08:24 We have patty field. 08:26 We have the garden. 08:28 So even all the students, 08:31 even teachers, they do not take weekend. 08:35 So teachers, they work with the students. 08:37 So that support comes from garden farm, 08:40 and that actually really helped to run our school. 08:47 But for now, many students at KMMS face a great need. 08:51 Out of the 400 children enrolled, 08:53 more than half rely on sponsorship to attend, 08:56 and 200 are either orphans or lacking a parent. 09:00 This is the reality in Bangladesh. 09:02 The country is full of people looking for work, 09:05 but not enough is found, 09:06 and the need to improve 09:08 an education doesn't make it easy. 09:10 Parents have to make hard decisions 09:12 that most in well-off countries could not understand. 09:16 The reality of how to let your child 09:17 have a future. 09:19 Many people are begging and asking for help 09:21 to give their children a future. 09:23 And sometimes having to make them work 09:25 is the only alternative. 09:27 The fact that KMMS exists 09:29 and give children a chance 09:30 to not only have a childhood, 09:32 but also be sponsored to have a good future 09:34 is huge in a country like Bangladesh. 09:42 One of the great aspects of my job is getting 09:44 to the field to see what Child Impact does. 09:47 And as you go through the day, 09:49 just occasionally something happens 09:51 that has a big impact on you. 09:53 And just yesterday, it happened. 09:56 I was standing here at the gate, 09:58 near the gate of the school and a lady came in. 10:01 You can see she was distressed. 10:03 She was crying. 10:04 She wanted to speak to one of the teachers. 10:07 And when she did, 10:08 tears were rolling down her face. 10:11 I could see that something was wrong. 10:13 And she's a solo mom. 10:15 Her husband has left her, 10:17 run off with another woman to India, 10:19 and she is struggling to bring up two girls. 10:22 And to be honest, she has to get out 10:24 and earn some money, 10:26 because she can't feed them and look after them. 10:28 She's also worried that 10:30 they're going to be trafficked or taken away from her. 10:33 So she wanted them enrolled in the school. 10:36 She wanted them sponsored, 10:38 and I could see that it wasn't just an education, 10:41 it was giving her hope. 10:43 It was giving her hope 10:45 that her children could be fed and have an education. 10:49 Sponsorship's making a big difference. 10:51 And if you could sponsor a child, 10:53 or you could help 10:54 with the unsponsored child fund, 10:56 it will make a difference. 11:11 In Bangladesh, 11:12 KMMS is a focus school for Child Impact, 11:14 which sponsors hundreds of children in the country 11:17 and allows them to continue receiving a quality education, 11:20 food security 11:22 and an opportunity to know Jesus. 11:24 On this filming trip to Bangladesh, 11:27 we've got two new perspectives. 11:29 One, the perspective of poverty 11:32 and the other perspective 11:33 of the impact of our sponsorship program. 11:36 In rural Bangladesh, 11:38 35% of the population live below the poverty line. 11:43 And amongst woman, it's even higher. 11:46 There are statistics like 11:47 the people only earn $1.98 a day 11:51 and the absolute poor are 32% of the population, 11:55 and the extreme poor are 19%, 11:59 and both those categories are above poor. 12:03 We've heard from the children the stories 12:05 of struggle of their parents, of their solo moms. 12:09 And we've heard 12:11 how they've been struggling to feed them. 12:13 And so we see that sponsorship is much greater than education. 12:18 Sponsorship is supporting the family. 12:21 It's giving the parents hope, 12:22 and there's a huge benefit to the community. 12:26 Sponsorship is effective, 12:28 and sponsorship is making a difference 12:30 on a wider scale here 12:32 in our program in Bangladesh. 12:37 Child Impact International sponsors over 3,500 children 12:40 living in poverty at 100 different schools. 12:46 At KMMS alone, 12:48 Child Impact sponsors 75 students. 12:53 Though they may live thousands of miles away, 12:56 going through a life 12:57 wholly unfamiliar to a foreigner, 12:59 every child here at KMMS has a story. 13:07 What is life like for a child in rural Bangladesh? 13:10 What have they gained from an Adventist education? 13:13 And how has Child Impact sponsorship affected them? 13:16 Join Jim Rennie 13:17 as he explores these things 13:19 at KMMS and several other schools in Bangladesh 13:22 to see how a glimmer of hope is possible, 13:25 and how you can have a direct impact in this world 13:28 that God has given us. 13:33 Each year Child Impact has its rice appeal 13:36 for needy schools and countries like Bangladesh. 13:40 And I'm here now in Bangladesh. 13:42 And you can see that at KMMS School, 13:44 these girls are enjoying their rice meal. 13:47 Now they eat a little differently to us, 13:50 but at least they're enjoying a healthy lunch meal. 13:54 Not only does it ensure that they have rice, 13:57 but it is also a big benefit 13:59 to the school for their finances 14:01 because food prices have just escalated beyond control. 14:06 So thanks for supporting the rice appeal in the past 14:09 and as we face it again in 2020, 14:12 we know that you will support us. |
Revised 2020-04-14