Bikes from Heaven
Don’t buy flowers for us, buy bikes for poorer kids…
This was the admonition prior to Jacky Andrews funereal from the Andrews family, and Jacky indeed was an ordinary – well, you know, no Nobel Prize or anything – woman though a delight to her friends. Thus, on her passing and internment at Cape Collinson in Hong Kong earlier this year her ceremonials were not accompanied by swathes of flowery farewells, the room was rather sparse, other than for the warmth of feeling from family and friends so gathered.
It’s a modern thing, ‘don’t bring flowers donate to such and such’ and in this case a little known organisation, the Christina Noble Memorial Fund.
Through the ongoing activities of this charitable fund a bevy of bright and shiny bicycles were arrayed one fine morning outside a school in Vietnam and presented to the lucky selected children of the school, those who would otherwise have to walk quite a distance to get there.
Anyone can imagine the sheer pleasure of a young one suddenly granted the freedom to fly along the streets amid the clamour of everyone going everywhere with the sights and aromas enhancing the great pleasure of opening up to a new day… “and on my own bike!”
Seemingly small things can in reality be big things. So many big headlines when millions are pledged to assist under-developed countries etc from the heights of the UN and other hopefully worthy institutions but then further stories emerge of lack of payments, of statistics showing only a lesser percentage of those huge figures actually reaching floor level to make that bit of difference. Here, what is said to be – in one fell blow – which is how Jacky suddenly left her family and friends – red tape and bureaucracy and administration fees and all that was severed…. and the kids got bikes and just like that the sun was shining with a brighter light.
Indeed, we are what we do.
While Jayne ‘Bean’ Andrews had to stay in Hong Kong , dad Malcolm Andrews and other daughter Ruth Chinchito Andrews made the trip over to Vietnam for the presentation. A great day for all.
The organisation itself can also feel so pleased as another of its projects reached completion in the immediacy of doing the lesser things, which in the end total as the Greater Thing.
The foundation itself works as an international partnership of people dedicated to helping underprivileged children and those at-risk of commercial or sexual exploitation.
They have operational centres in Vietnam and Mongolia that provide shelter to the underprivileged, orphaned or abandoned children ensuring all children in care have direct access to a good education, a high standard of healthcare, and other social and employment opportunities. They also engage in sustainable developments that directly benefit the families and wider communities of the children they support. To date the Foundation has helped over 600,000 children and their families.
It is unusual to give consideration to the entire environment of a child that was so fortunate to receive support and with reflection that is such an important concept as, imagine, if a child just has a new bike and all else is left as is… Now, with this institution’s holistic style, the outer layers can be attended to and not just the core of the problem short-sightedly viewed.
Also imagine, if a lottery contender had to supply a list of all relatives and friends before entering a lottery, then, on winning, he or she would get the ten million dollars but that ten million dollars would be spread among all those so listed… That would deposit a quite different overlay across all the lucky winner’s relationships and a completeness would be generated.
Bye Jacky, hi young bikers!
Christina Noble Memorial Fund: http://www.cncf.org.hk/
