SOS Friend Touring Canada

A young woman, who’s been cycling across and all over Canada for the past 16 months, is sending out an SOS to Canadians to help SOS Children's Villages.

Tana Silverland, who recently moved to Canada from Britain, began what’s to be a two-and-a-half year journey in June 2010 with one goal in mind – “to get the word out about SOS Children’s Villages”.
 

She said she discovered the organisation “by accident” when living in Cambridge, England. SOS Children’s Villages had an office around the corner from where she worked and one day she “popped in” to see what it was all about. “There are so many things that make SOS Children’s Villages special,” she told The Walkerton Herald-Times, an online newspaper during an interview in October, adding SOS Children's Villages “is incredibly huge” in Europe.

“We can’t take all the credit; she started as a volunteer with SOS Childen's Villages UK so they must have made the ‘sell’ there but she’s been wonderful and certainly dedicated,” says Jennifer Plank from SOS Children’s Villages Canada.

“The organisation ensures that not only the children’s basic material needs are met, but that they also receive the love, respect, guidance and support that all children deserve and need to become healthy, happy and productive adults,” Tana said.

Tana – who goes by the nickname ‘Silver’ – said she was especially touched by the love she saw given to children without parental care or at risk of losing it. Having a loving upbringing herself, Silver said she became “passionate” about SOS Children's Villages. “The entire organisation is basically thinking like a loving parent, not a charity,” she said.

Her journey – all on a recumbent tricycle – has taken her to dozens of communities in the past 16 months. She speaks to various service clubs and organisations and tries to get her message out through local media on each of her stops. She stays at different billets on a day to day basis. “I’ve been very fortunate so far,” she said. “I’ve always had a place to stay.” But travel, she must. “Every week I’m off the road it could be two or three communities that I don’t get to see.”

The first year was all about getting the message out and spreading awareness of SOS Children’s Villages. But many people she met along the way wanted to make a cash donation, so Silver set up a fund with a target to raise $60,000 – so far she’s collected around $18,000.

Silver said she plans on travelling across Newfoundland as well, but will probably head back west to end her travel in Ottawa, home to SOS Children’s Villages headquarters in Canada near the end of 2012.

“I’ve got to keep going and spread the word,” she said.