OUR STORY

In late 2017, news of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis reached our town of Andover, Massachusetts. The short news clips of the Rohingya people fleeing their Myanmar homes in fear and desperation deeply touched each of our hearts. Upon further study we discovered that hundreds of thousands (and now over a million) Rohingya men, women, and children fled to Banglasdesh after they were attacked with impunity and driven from their homes through violence, murder, and rape. We asked ourselves, “What if their story was my story? What if their pain was my pain?” We did not know what we could do, but we knew we could do something. 

In early 2018, we organized a small group to fly to Bangladesh to investigate. After arriving we worked with local groups already on the ground to visit the refugee camps. We met many Rohginya Refugees. We listened to their stories, held their hands, and fell in love with them. We expressed our whole-hearted desire to help and then turned to them to teach us how we could provide the most effective assistance. 

As we worked to discover long-term solutions, we put the generous donations we had already received to provide immediate relief in the form of food, gardens, chickens, and a deep tubal well. These simple projects provided hope and eased suffering but we knew we had more work to do. We went on to focus our effects on projects that would provide hope for a brighter future by building and maintaining a school in a Rohingya camp for 60 refugee children to attend. 

Along with building human connections in the refugee camps, we also worked extensively with the Bangladeshi people who were hosting the refugees in their country. We made friendships in Dhaka and Cox’s Bazaar and discovered many of their people were also facing extreme need, poverty, and suffering. In Dhaka we connected with an old-age home that selflessly houses the city’s elderly that had been discarded onto the street. We also partnered with a local orphanage, The Home of the Champions, to provide on-going education for 24 children/teens. In both Dhaka and Cox’s Bazaar we work to improve education and relieve suffering through direct, meaningful projects.

Since our first visit to Bangladesh in 2018, we officially created the 501c3 nonprofit Compassion Takes Action. CTA organizes effective projects year round and returns to Bangladesh each year to bring donations (school kits, hygiene kits, quilts, computer equipment). We make and strengthen personal connections, evaluate and improve our past projects, and work with the people to design our plans for the future. 

**Note about your monetary gifts: It is very important to us that your donations go directly to the people of Bangladesh and the Rohingya Refugees. To do this, the board of directors covers all administrative overhead costs and each individual who accompanies CTA to Bangladesh pays their own way. Meaning your compassion takes very direct action in a life-changing way.