A lot of readers responded to Eye's call to knit teddies for Teddies for Tragedies late last year and many of them have now made it to their new homes with children, as Bernice Taylor tells us:

Once again this summer many bears have travelled via Gainsborough to befriend sick and underprivileged children in Eastern Europe.

In April eight volunteers travelled to India as part of a short term Transform Team to help on a voluntary basis at a Christian Hospital in Herbtpur. The project was organised by Tearfund in the UK in partnership with the Emmanuel Hospitals Association in India. They spent two weeks at the hospital and took with them 200 teddies. Some were given to local children in the village, some to the hospital and some to a smaller clinic in a remote rural area. They were so gratefully received. The paediatrician at the hospital was so delighted as often a child will arrive at the hospital very distressed and inconsolable. The volunteers had occasion to visit the children's ward at just such a moment and it was such a joy and pleasure to see the delight on the child's face to receive something just for them which they could hug and hold and see the tears and anguish subside.

Another occasion they were visiting a maternity ward. They gave a teddy to a mother who had just had her stillborn baby taken from her. She just held on tight to the teddy and cried and cried. It was so sad to witness her pain but the teddy enabled her to release her tears and provided some comfort in her grief.

The children of the village had very little in the way of possessions. One family of bricklayers were working on a building at the hospital grounds and would give the children each day something salvaged from the building site to play with, such as an empty paint pot, a strip of plastic or a metal bin. When the children were given teddies, balloons and sweets they were overjoyed. One little boy just kept running back and forth to his father grinning from ear to ear showing him his new found friend.

Teddies, puppets and bags are now being gathered for the next journeys, for more information The Friend can pass your details onto Bernice.