Empowering Children Through Philanthropy

Season 3, episode 9

Empowering Children Through Philanthropy

Just in time for Halloween, this episode, hosted by a child, is designed to get kids into giving. Gather your family and listen to two tales that will guide your children, through storytelling, to a powerful message: they can make a difference.

Sound Mix: Chandra Bulucon

Episode Transcript: 

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:00:06.33] Hello! For every child podcast listeners, my name is Eloise. And I'm taking over this podcast from the usual host UNICEF Canada president and CEO, David Morley to bring you this special spooky October podcast dedicated to being a UNICEF Halloween hero.

[00:00:25.58] [OWL COOS]

[00:00:27.93] This Halloween children and families across Canada are turning their trick or treating steps into a walkathon to raise money for kids around the world. Hope you learned about how kids can make a difference for other kids around the world through a few stories our guest will tell.

[00:00:44.22] [GHOSTLY WHISPER]

[00:00:46.72] OK, here we go. Let's hear some good stories.

[00:00:49.60] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:01:05.45] Now for our first story, I am joined today by Bayan Yammout a UNICEF Canada ambassador and a fellow Halloween superhero to help us understand why raising money for UNICEF Halloween walkathon is so important to kids around the world.

[00:01:23.64] She is going to talk with us today about a little girl who grew up in a place called Lebanon and dreamed of her school not being close. Let's get started. Bayan, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:01:38.25] Hello, Eloise! And thanks for having me on this special episode.

[00:01:42.38] How does your story start?

[00:01:44.81] My story is about a little girl who grew up in Lebanon. She lived with her mom, her dad, and her little brother in a small apartment in the city just 10 minutes from the beach. She could even see the sea and the boats from her bedroom balcony.

[00:02:00.90] She loved school. And her favorite subjects were science and art. She even took ballet classes after school. She had many friends and often got in trouble for talking too much in class.

[00:02:12.87] Can you tell us about what Lebanon was like?

[00:02:15.74] When this girl was growing up, there was a big problem in her country. There was war and people fighting. Her parents often talked to her about life before the war and how beautiful the city was and all those fancy shops and restaurants they used to go to.

[00:02:33.11] This girl never got to see how life looked like because she was born just after the war had started. At that time, the sky was often gray because of the smoke. The sound of bombs was very loud and terrifying. Many people got hurt.

[00:02:49.07] What did the bomb sound like?

[00:02:51.05] It sounded like very loud thunderstorms.

[00:02:54.26] That must have been so scary.

[00:02:57.02] Many schools had to close and most buildings were damaged or even completely destroyed. It wasn't safe for her to continue going to her dance lessons or even to play at the park. She missed many school days and often had to hide in an underground shelter.

[00:03:14.93] What was it like for her in the shelter?

[00:03:17.33] When the bombing got too close to home, this little girl and her family, and all the neighbors in the building would run down to the shelter. She always carried her little blanket with her. And sometimes, when she had the minute or two, she would also grab a small water bottle, a pencil, and her notebook.

[00:03:35.75] The shelter was dark and scary but she was very brave and she wasn't the only child in the shelter. They all tried hard to stay strong, to stick together, and play together. She tried to distract herself by playing tic-tac-toe, by drawing pictures, by even writing some letters. She was grateful to have access to a paper and pencils, especially when she knew a math test is coming up. She didn't like test.

[00:04:04.40] What were her dreams and what was she afraid of?

[00:04:07.13] So this girl didn't stop dreaming about what she wanted to do when she grows up. So one day, she would say, she wanted to be a teacher just like her mom. Another day, she would talk about becoming a nurse or even a scientist. It was hard for her to decide. And because she had big dreams, she never liked it when schools were closed because of the fighting. And she was worried that if she can't go to school, she won't be able to graduate from high school and go to university.

[00:04:36.08] Why couldn't she go to school?

[00:04:38.66] She couldn't go to school because sometimes the fighting was so strong and so close to school or to home. Even walking to school was very dangerous. So she had to skip school. And sometimes the school would not open for kids.

[00:04:51.43] [BELL RINGS]

[00:04:54.33] You said her parents were in the shelter with her. What did her parents do?

[00:04:59.64] Her parents were very busy helping others during the war. They volunteered with UNICEF by delivering emergency kits like soap, protein bars, clean water, and other stuff to the people in the community. And her mom was a teacher, taught about seeing all of these children missing school and spending days and nights in those very boring shelters. So she used UNICEF supplies like construction paper, crayons, scissors, and glue, and started doing fun arts and crafts activities with the children in different shelters all around the city. She read stories, sang songs, and she put on her own puppet shows.

[00:05:40.90] How did she reach safety?

[00:05:43.68] This little girl spent her summer in the mountains. Sometimes, the mountains were a little bit safer than the city. And one summer day, a group of friendly young people came to her house in the mountains and invited her and her little brother to a UNICEF peace camp. She wasn't sure if she's going to like it but she decided to give it a try.

[00:06:04.57] The peace camp was so much fun. It took place in a small school with a nice big yard. She sang songs that arts and crafts, played games outside, and met new friends. It was the best summer of her life. It felt so good to be safe and to learn and have fun with other kids.

[00:06:25.10] What is she doing today? Did her dreams come true?

[00:06:28.91] You know despite the rough childhood, her story had a happy ending. She managed to graduate from high school and go to university. She's now a teacher for students with special needs in a school in Toronto here in Canada and has two children of her own. She volunteers with UNICEF to help children have access to education, regardless of where they live.

[00:06:53.25] What was the girl's name?

[00:06:54.68] [LAUGHS]

[00:06:56.31] Her name is Bayan.

[00:06:58.43] Isn't that your name?

[00:06:59.60] Yeah, that's me. That was me in this story.

[00:07:04.17] What did you tell kids who are fundraising?

[00:07:07.16] I want to say thank you so much for doing what you're doing and for thinking about all those boys and girls who have very hard time going to school. Thank you for helping them.

[00:07:17.66] Thank you for joining us today, Bayan.

[00:07:20.15] Thank you, Eloise for having me on your show.

[00:07:22.40] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:07:24.76] Our next storyteller is named Vivien Glenncross. She has a job at UNICEF Canada called director of development. But she's also my mom. Before the pandemic started, my mom traveled along a really big river called the Amazon through the rainforest to meet kids in a village called Peru. I cannot wait to hear about her adventure there. OK, mom, let's chat. Thank you for coming on the show today.

[00:07:51.86] Oh, I'm so excited to be here.

[00:07:54.32] How does your story start?

[00:07:57.04] Well, I had the opportunity and the privilege to travel to a country by the name of Peru, which is in South America. When we got there, myself and a group of people traveling together from UNICEF had the opportunity to visit yet another village within that region.

[00:08:17.09] So we woke up really early in the morning. I think it was around 6:30 in the morning, which was super early for me. And had the opportunity to go on these boats which were a little bit scary because they were not the kind of boats that I was used to. But we had to get into them because the village that we were was only accessible by boat. We couldn't drive there, we couldn't walk there, we really had to take a boat to get there. So that was a really exciting adventure.

[00:08:45.34] Looking at the river and how big it was, was really, it opened my eyes up because it was a very big river and it was kind of like the color of mud where you couldn't see to the bottom of it. So my imagination was going wild thinking about all the different wildlife that could be in there. The type of fish that could be going on in that particular river. So many things to imagine that we're not used to.

[00:09:09.77] And also because when you're in the Amazon, the weather is very, very hot. It's much different than what I came from in Canada, which was cold and I still had my winter jacket on. When I went to the Amazon, I was in a t-shirt and I had shorts on because it was very, very hot and so humid out. So it almost felt like it was raining but it wasn't because it was just very humid in there.

[00:09:33.64] So we got onto this boat with a driver and the driver took us on this adventure. On either side of us, all we saw was beautiful green, lush trees all around us and lots of different sounds of birds, lots of interesting smells in the air. And again the Amazon, right there in front of us this big river that stretched across the country.

[00:09:58.85] So we went across this river, zipped along, it actually quite fast. And we were on the boat for about 45 minutes. So it was a little bit of a ride out from the shore. And then took-- from the Amazon, we went onto this smaller river called the Napo river which was just off of the Amazon. And as we went on to the Napo river, we entered. So we were in the Lauretta province but we ended up entering the Amazon district specifically.

[00:10:25.37] So this is where our story and our adventures start to really happen.

[00:10:29.92] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:10:32.43] What were you going to do when you reached the place you were going to?

[00:10:36.05] So when we went into Amazon district, we went specifically to a very small, small village named [? Ucro ?] Murano. So interesting that this entire village only had 68 families living there. Can you imagine that? 68 families, that's kind of like our street of the number of people.

[00:10:56.52] So it was very small and very remote and we knew this going in. I couldn't imagine what it was going to look like. And as we started moving towards the shore, we saw all of this excitement and there was a lot of noise and a lot of music. And I was very confused about what was happening.

[00:11:11.91] And as we got closer and closer, what I saw was the entire village had come out all of them standing on the shore. There was maybe 300 people there all of them in traditional attire, kids in traditional attire, the elders holding up signs welcoming us. There was music that they were playing. I was like in a parade led by a lot of these elders to the village for us to be able to see what the village was all about and really talk to them about this challenge they had of lack of clean water.

[00:11:44.54] Why were you going there?

[00:11:46.82] They didn't have clean water. So kids got sicker more often, in the community members got sick or more often. But it also meant that kids couldn't be kids because if they didn't have water that was close by that was clean, they would have to spend their time going down to the river with buckets in hand and filling it up and lugging those back to their family homes. That meant they couldn't go to school oftentimes. They had to skip school. They certainly couldn't participate in activities after school. So kids just couldn't be kids.

[00:12:17.27] One of the reasons that we were going there is because as I work with UNICEF and UNICEF does a lot of great work all around the world. And one of the biggest areas that UNICEF works in is an area called WASH. And what WASH stands for is water sanitation and hygiene. And I think we all know how important it is for us all to have water and the importance of that.

[00:12:40.47] So one of the reasons we were going there is to visit this particular community, and to hear about some of the issues that they had been facing when it came to water accessibility, and what UNICEF was going to do specifically to help them with that. So as we walked in and they showed us all of the different homes and the community centers, the piece that really they wanted to show us as community leaders, and the reason that we were there and what UNICEF helped support is the building of a community water filtration tower.

[00:13:12.38] So that was a really, really important thing. And what that really is it's a system that UNICEF helped to put together and to fund that would allow the village to get water from the Napa River, clean that water, and then push it through a tap. So that when the villagers wanted water and needed water, instead of going down to the river with big buckets that they had to heavily lift back to their homes, they could certainly go to this community filtration system, turn on a tap, fill up their buckets, fill up their glasses of water, and be able to enjoy it safely and make you sure that they didn't get sick and that they had it when they needed it the most.

[00:13:53.39] Seeing this system was so incredible. It was-- with so much pride that the elders showed off this water filtration system that had been put into their village and talked about the importance of this into their village and how much it has made a difference in the lives of the community.

[00:14:11.93] Certainly, cutting back on the amount of times that people got sick from drinking water that wasn't necessarily clean, how it helped from a safety perspective because now little kids and elders didn't have to go down to the water to the river and lug these big giant jugs of water back to their homes. They now could have the drinking water that they wanted without having to boil everything and make sure that it was clean and it was really with so much pride that the elders took a glass of water turned on that tap, filled up the glass of water, and very proudly presented it to us to say this is what UNICEF did for us and we want you to enjoy this gift from us by having this glass of water.

[00:14:57.08] It was a very special moment, Eloise in my life to be able to watch the joy and the pride on their faces as they presented this water filtration system that I think we take for granted sometimes of how quickly and how easily we get water. But for a community like that, it has made all the difference for them just to make things easier, just to make sure that they kept healthy and safe. And that they could focus their time and energy on being kids.

[00:15:28.66] What is the main memory you have that has stayed with you about the trip?

[00:15:32.71] So after they presented us with this water, we actually had a wonderful ceremony at the end of it where there was songs sung and we participated in a lot of traditional activities. Before the group of us all walked back to the boat, again paraded with accompanied by all of these community people who saw safely being put back in the boat.

[00:15:53.02] At this point, I felt so much joy and so much pride and such a privilege to meet this group of people and the pride in working at UNICEF. So I had the opportunity to get back in the boat. I was much less nervous this time. I'd already been on the boat and I felt like I was an expert at this. And we got back in and we went back up the Napo river onto the Amazon and went out made our way back to Iquitos, which is really where our stories started.

[00:16:19.30] And the confidence that I had and the commitment that I've had to UNICEF and the importance of the work that we do really has stayed with me. And the importance of talking to you and your brother about the importance of giving back to those who need it the most. We can all make a difference. And I think that to me, this story has really demonstrated how something that we take for granted, something that we think is so simple can change the lives of so many people.

[00:16:48.27] Thank you so much for joining us to tell us that story about how important it is for kids to have clean water.

[00:16:55.85] All right. Thank you very much, Eloise. Thanks for having me today.

[00:16:58.97] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:17:00.94] As a UNICEF Halloween hero means that more kids like Bayan and those that my mom met in Peru will be able to access clean water and education, health care, and nutritious food. It's easy and only takes a few minutes to help kids just like us around the world.

[00:17:19.68] Kids along with their families can raise money through their personal donation web page throughout the month of October. And new for this year, kids will receive a digital orange box to raise extra dollars on their Halloween evening walk. It's easy to make a difference and be part of UNICEF's walkathon, just get into your favorite Halloween costumes but turn it into a walkathon.

[00:17:43.23] Ask your family to donate to your own personalized web page online throughout October to help you raise funds that will support kids around the world. If you want to learn more, go to unicef.ca/halloween. So that brings us to the end of my special spooky podcast takeover. Don't forget to stand up for children's rights everywhere and become a Halloween hero. Happy Halloween!

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