She’s travelling Canada at a snails pace, but Tana Silverland has a big mission to complete as she goes.

Silverland is touring Canada on a trike over two and a half years, spreading the word for her favourite charity, SOS Children’s Villages. She stopped in Jasper on June 28, and although she had some down time to enjoy the community and mountains, she still managed to get out and talk about the charity. 

On June 16, Silverland celebrated a year on the road. Her destination is Cape Spear, Nfld., but she is in no hurry to get there as she zig-zags the country. 

“[I’m just trying to] spread the word as loudly as I can,” she said. 

SOS gives children that are at risk a chance to have a normal life with a loving parent around them 24 hours a day, plus counselling to help them deal with trauma. Silverland said that without help, some children get left behind to live with their pasts. 

“They’re just never able to get past [the trauma], because no on helps them get over it,” she said.

Silverland discovered the charity in her home country of the U.K., where the office was right around the corner from her home. She decided to get involved, and began volunteering. She was hooked when she discovered just what SOS Children’s Villages does. She enjoyed “just seeing the dedication and mindset of the organization and seeing the difference they make in so many children’s lives.”

Silverland was lucky to have two wonderful parents, and she feels that every child deserves the same start. 

The children placed into the care of SOS Children’s Villages have all suffered a traumatic past and lost their parents for one reason or another. 

“[They experience] just really, really horrible things that you wouldn’t want anybody to go through,” Silverland said. 

She has been fundraising across Canada however she can, and while donations are great, Silverland just wants to spread the word as she goes along. 

“More important for me is the awareness building,” she said – although she acknowledges that ultimately the charity can’t run without donations. “It does take hard cash to raise a child, you can’t get away from that.”

Silverland reaches out to local newspapers, does presentations in schools and occasionally just comes across interesting ways to shout about the charity. 

“I try to speak to as many people as I can,” she said. “The ripples will spread out. There is a limit to how many people I can speak to.”

When talking about SOS Children’s Villages, Silverland tries to speak with as much passion as she possibly can, hoping that it will be infectious and cause someone else to become excited about getting involved. 

The former resident of the U.K. has another intriguing reason for her trip; Silverland is hoping to settle in Canada – somewhere – but just can’t decide where. The tour is giving her the chance to really see the entire country from sea to sea to sea. Silverland started in Whitehorse, Yukon on her trusty trike. She chose the vehicle because it is comfortable and safer. She’s lower to the ground and it keeps her anchored when large trucks zoom by her. 

“I am about to see the whole thing, and decided to deliberately keep my mind open,” she said. 

While in Jasper, Silverland got to tour Maligne Lake and speak with the Rotary Club about her journey. While in town, like always, she relied on strangers to put her up for the night. 

“I am almost completely dependant on the kindness of strangers in each town I come to,” she said. “Compared to the administration [work], the cycling is actually easy.”

That allows Silverland to donate every single cent she makes to SOS Children’s Villages, even though she sometimes struggles up until the last minute to find a bed for the night. 

“It’s definitely not an easy way to go, [but] I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said. “If I had the money to stay in B&Bs and the rest of it, I could probably give that money to SOS Children’s Villages.”

When leaving Jasper, Silverland backtracked up Highway 16 to Hinton, before heading off towards Saskatchewan. She is looking forward to a few months of fairly flat terrain to pedal through after tackling the Crowsnest Pass and the many other mountain ranges that brought her to Jasper – however, in the prairies she will have to contend with strong winds. 

Silverland has a blog set up at tanasilverland.wordpress.com, and information on her charity of choice can be found at  www.soschildrensvillages.ca

SOS Children’s Villages has a village just outside of Vancouver with five different homes clustered as a neighbourhood. The children living there are all from the foster care system, and the families they have been placed in give them a sense of normalcy. The SOS Children’s Villages Canada office is located in Ottawa. 

According to their website, www.soschildrensvillages.ca, SOS Children’s Villages is a non-profit society that constructs communities around the globe for children who have been orphaned or abandoned for various reasons. They not only construct a home for the children, they provide a specially trained parent figure to live there with them. The society is currently raising 78,000 children in more than 500 villages in 125 countries. They also operate 228 Kindergarten classes that help about 23,000 children and 191 schools that help 135,000 children. The schools not only educate those in the care of SOS Children’s Villages, they benefit the surrounding communities as well. Later in life, SOS has youth centres and vocational training to further prepare the children for life outside of the village.