29th December 2011

Helping Blankadesh help the children

There’s a wonderful charity in Bangladesh called Blankadesh and every winter they make and distribute fleece blankets to poor children in Dhaka and throughout Bangladesh. The business model is clever and simple. They sell exactly the same fleece blankets to expatriates in Dhaka for twice the cost price and for every blanket an expat buys, a second blanket is given to a poor child. It’s a wonderful model. You buy a blanket for yourself and get your blanket and at the same time keep a child somewhere in Bangladesh warm. This winter they have been extremely busy and have distributed 1500 blankets to poor children all over the country. Logistically they need a little help doing this and so other charities and organisations which have links to different areas help them with the distribution. This year we were asked to distribute 40 blankets in Sirajganj and 40 blankets in Dinajpur and you can see the pictures of this and the happy faces on the children who received them in the attached pictures.

Bangladesh is typically hot for most of the year but in the winter for about 2 months it really does get cold. If the sun comes out during the day then you can warm up from it but if the whole day is overcast and particularly at night the temperature really does plummet. In Dinajpur in the far North near the Indian border they have been recording temperatures as low as 6oC and that’s really cold when you only have light clothing. The blankets given out by Blankadesh really make a huge difference and we thank them for including Hathay Bunano in this year’s distribution and wish them well in future winters.