I couldn't walk away

Sreepur Village, Bangladesh, believes that poverty should not separate children from their family. Janey Swanson finds out more.

- Janey Swanson

FOR over 30 years Pat Kerr has been called "Pat Mummy" by thousands of children in Bangladesh.

"I feel very honoured to have been given this name," Pat says.

She is founder of the Sreepur Village, a UK-based charity which provides shelter, food and hope to vulnerable mothers and children in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Strongly believing that poverty should not tear children from their mothers, Sreepur Village currently provides over 400 mothers and children with a place they can call home, where they can transform their lives with educational and vocational skills.

"Sreepur Village is like an enormous extended family," Pat, who lives in Sreepur Village, explains.

"Children are running around, women are shouting at each other one minute, hugging each other the next, and there's laughter everywhere."

Pat first came to Bangladesh in 1981, when she was a purser on British Airways flights from London to Dhaka.

"On one of our regular three-day stop-overs in Dhaka, the crew decided they wanted to help somewhere," Pat recalls.

"I went exploring and came across an overcrowded, run-down orphanage.

"The children gave me such a lovely welcome, I couldn't walk away."

Pat and her colleagues offered to help at the orphanage whenever they were in Dhaka, and soon realised that many of the children had been abandoned by mothers who had no money, no food, no home and no husband.

"In Bangladesh, single mothers really struggle," Pat explains.

"For many of these desperate women, their only option was to leave their children at the orphanage."

Pat explains that, although she enjoyed helping to care for the children, she'd no intentions of being anything other than a volunteer until the charity that ran the orphanage was served with an eviction notice.