Inspiration Tana Silverland is cycling across Canada on a two and half year journey to raise awareness for the SOS Children's Villages organization.
Silverland arrived in North Battleford Thurs. and was eager to deliver a message drawing attention to the charity that she is tremendously passionate about.
The charity is literally the force behind her voyage.
"I actually don't have a passion for long distance cycling," Silverland admitted, "but I do, most certainly have a passion for SOS Children services. Taking on a challenge of cycling across the second largest country in the world was not something that has always been on my bucket list."
Silverland arrived at Whitehorse, Yukon by plane on June 16, 2010 and started cycling the same day. She's originally from the UK, which is where the concept germinated.
She first became involved with the global charity at their UK office, casually volunteering after work and on the weekends.
She was instantly inspired by how focused the organization is and explained the purpose of the charity simply as, "Giving orphans who literally have nothing and no one a secure, loving home with a mom who loves them the same as my mom loves me.
"They don't build orphanages, what they do build are little communities of individual homes so that each child comes into the care of the organization gets to grow up in a family environment. Each child is known, respected and valued individually by the SOS mother."
An SOS Children's Village is comprised of three separate Categories.
SOS mothers are essentially the fundamental caregivers for the organization. They build relationships with the children in their care as though a biological mother would, offering stability, security and unconditional love to the children entrusted to them. Most of the children come from difficult or traumatizing pasts, and the SOS moms are trained to help repair their lives and return them to normalization.
As the children grow, the mother is there to assist them through life's obstacles like helping the children find their biological parents, encouraging friendships outside of the village and helping them with career planning. Just like any mother, the children remain in contact after they have transitioned from the village to start their own lives.
There to support the SOS mothers are a number of youth leaders, educators, psychologist and social workers.
"They say it takes a village to raise a child, so they basically put that saying into practice and they understand that trying to raise five to 10 kids is a tall order, so they make sure that no one is trying to do that in isolation," says Silverland.
If the community doesn't have access to a school, health care center or vocational training, the charity will build those facilities for the village. They not only open it up to the children in the village but also the children in the entire community.
"The number of children and families that they are actually impacting and making a difference in the lives of stretches way beyond just the nearly 80,000 children that they're taking care of directly," she adds.
Silverland has deliberately not sought any sponsorship or funding for the journey itself so that any money generated will go right towards the foundation.
Her journey will end at Cape Spear, Nfld., the most eastern tip of Canada.
She would like to encourage communities to support her cause and donate today at tanasilverland.wordpress.com saying, "It would absolutely fantastic to see our total grow as a result of the people of the Battlefords."
