Ziz York was fed up with her daughters telling her they were poor.
A Scottish aid worker fed up with her children complaining they were poor took them on a “life changing” trip to Uganda to show them the real meaning of poverty.
Ziz York believes the two-week trip to the African nation has made daughters Nia, nine, and eight-year-old Robyn realise how fortunate they are to have been born in the UK.
The 35-year-old now hopes her children will think twice about moaning about not getting everything that they want, after seeing first-hand the difficulties faced by kids growing up in the developing world.
Inverness-born Ziz works as overseas project coordinator in Uganda for Welsh humanitarian charity Teams4U, which carries out educational work on menstrual and sexual health in the country.
She said: “Before we went to Uganda, my daughters had been complaining ‘Oh, we’re so poor’ because they’d seen friends get holidays to Disney World or getting Xboxes for their birthdays and stuff like that.
“I turned round and said ‘You have a roof over your head, we have loose change in our pockets, we can buy pretty much what we want in a supermarket, you have freedom of movement, we are in the top five per cent richest in the world’.
“Nia said ‘No we’re not. We don’t have a mansion or servants’, but after taking them to Uganda and going ‘This is the reality for most of the world’, it made her think.
“It made things a lot easier for Christmas because for the first time ever they were not asking for ridiculous things. They have an understanding now that they are lucky to have much more than most kids do.”
Ziz, who paid for her children to accompany her on a visit to the project last year, added: “I think the biggest eye-opener for them was just the lack of clothing. They were seeing children that were a quarter dressed because their clothes were that ragged.
“They saw the lack of basic supplies we take for granted. The Ugandan kids didn’t have pens, paper, underwear, a lot of them didn’t have shoes. There were no toys.
“My kids weren’t fully exposed to the most dramatic things like children dying from malaria or suffering from serious malnutrition because of the lack of medical supplies and food. But they got enough of an idea about why we need to help. I wish more British people could get that perspective.”
Teams4U received a £36,000 grant in September 2018 through the UK Government’s Small Charities Challenge Fund, a scheme run by the Department for International Development (DFID). DFID is encouraging more small charities doing vital work around the world to apply for SCCF funding before the 30 April deadline.
International development minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said: “The UK Government’s Small Charities Challenge Fund was set up to make it easier for smaller UK organisations, which do vital work around the world, access the crucial support they need to help end poverty.
“UK aid has helped Welsh charity Teams4U expand their work to improve sexual and menstrual health awareness among girls in Uganda so they can thrive at school and reach their full potential.
“We want more small charities, doing important, life-changing and live-saving work in developing countries, to apply for a grant, so they can grow, and support jobs in the UK, while making even more of a difference globally.”
