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Lucy Lawless - My Life Changing Journey
New Zealand Woman's Weekly
30 January 2006
Her career is bubbling along with a regular guest role on
Battlestar Galactica and plans to record an album.
But for Lucy Lawless, last year's highlight was a trip to visit the child
whose life she helped save.
Article written by Lucy Lawless
I began sponsoring Banik through World Vision around the
time my daughter was born but sponsoring has gone on in my family for a long
time. When I was a kid we had this little blue-and-red box in the kitchen
that said, "Two cents saves lives." We'd take it to school when it was
stuffed with two-cent pieces. My parents still have that box.
I had a very privileged upbringing in New Zealand with good, loving parents.
We were an average middle-class family but we were extremely privileged
compared to the rest of the world. So I wanted to go outside my environment
and help someone else. I didn't know much about Bangladesh before I went -
except that I didn't want to come home with a belly full of worms! I knew it
had terrible floods and that politically it's very volatile.
When you donate to a charity, it's very rare that you get to see what your
money does. Usually you pay up and take your chances so it was a real
privilege for me to go to see Banik.
I've been sponsoring Banik since he was just a cute little kid and now he's
grown into a fantastic young man. He is a great scholar and is very good at
maths. He is hoping to go to university to study accountancy. A few years
ago he had a health problem, which was one of the most horrifying medical
afflictions I can think of. I can't remember its name but it was an awful
flesh-eating disease. The staff at World Vision were absolute heroes and
took him to India for treatment. When you get ill out there, you have to be
careful. People die of really simple stuff.
When I met Banik and his family in Kaliganj, the very poor
area where they live, they responded to me as if I was an angel. To them, my
little contribution was a big thing. They felt huge love and gratitude and
that was very humbling.
If it wasn't for my sponsorship, as far as his parents were concerned, Banik
would be dead. Even if he hadn't fallen ill, he probably would have been
illiterate, working at whatever menial job he could get. The fact that he
may now go to university is amazing.
I was thrilled to see how his family have taken the ball and run with it.
That is part of what World Vision does - it opens people's horizons and
gives them a chance to dream. When a family is focused solely on earning a
few cents to buy food, their needs are so of-the-moment that they don't dare
to dream they could get an education. Forget university when you are trying
to get a bowl of rice to feed your children.
I also met a little girl called Bina, also from Kaliganj, who wasn't part of
the World Vision programme. I saw what it was like for kids who don't have
sponsorship. I didn't take it very well - in fact, I coped very badly.
Her mother has three kids and all of them are in ill health. The reality is,
people have a lot of babies because half of them die or wind up on the scrap
heap.
But there is great hope for Bina - she's a bright, attractive little girl -
so if we can keep her alive and get her to school,
then perhaps somebody will want to sponsor her and change her life too. It's
crazy when you think 10 bucks
a week will make such a difference - and it's so easy for many New
Zealanders to afford that small amount.
I saw five-year-old children holding on to their younger siblings, all of
them living on the street. These kids are almost completely naked - they
don't even have a box to cover themselves. I saw those kids and thought, "My
family have it too easy."
After meeting Banik, I rang my daughter and read her the riot act about
helping out her brothers in the morning. I was about to threaten to ground
her on Friday night, even though I was in Bangladesh!
I promised myself that, when I got home, I was going to trim the fat from
our family life a bit. I am now focused on making sure we all contribute to
the wellbeing of our family. Banik is now a young man and able to stand on
his own feet so I'm transferring my sponsorship to a little girl named
Fatema.
For most people in Bangladesh, life is about bare survival
and it's horrifying to see that. When people are not eating and are not
healthy, they will do things like sell their kids - literally. People are so
busy surviving, there is no room for love. As awful and harrowing as these
things are to see, I believe the experience has made me a better human
being.
* See more of Lucy's life-changing trip on Lucy Lawless: Five Days in
Bangladesh at 7.30pm Tuesday 31 January on TV2.
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End of Article
Advert for World Vision
Lucy
Lawless - "Bina has a meal a day, it's not enough."
A small bowl of rice a day ... is not enough. "I will never forget Bina and her family... some of the poorest people in the world. I wanted to meet a child who isn't sponsored. I really didn't expect to be afffect so much, but the poverty is quite overwhelming. Her mother is out of her mind with worry. Bina's brother is severely handicapped. It's terrible. Such a desperately poor family.
"It was a real shock... but my spirits were lifted by the joy of meeting my own sponsored child. Healthy, well-fed, it's fantastic.
"The smallest glimmer of hope is all it takes to give these kids a better life."
Watch "Five Days in Bangladesh", TV2 7.30 pm Tuesday January 31, as Lucy Lawless experiences the huge difference child sponsorship makes. You can make that difference for someone like Bina by sponsoring a child.
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