The children of the British School of Bahrain (BSB) have been bringing their best smiles to the classroom as well as donations of packaged toothbrushes to ensure Gulf Weekly’s Ramadan Smile Campaign gets off to a bright start.

We are aiming to collect 3,000 packaged toothbrushes donated by readers for families surviving in refugee camps having fled to safety from conflicts in the Middle East.

Head of BSB’s Senior School Khalil Ahmed said: “Great idea! We would love to be involved.”

Donation bins have been set up at the reception area. Pupils at the school are well known for their big hearts as well as their smiles. For example, in total this year the juniors alone have raised an amazing BD6,280 for good causes.

A ‘Charity Assembly’ was recently held at its Hamala premises so pupils could see where the money had gone and how it was being utilised. Speakers included representatives from The Palm Association, Reef Arabia and senior school pupils spoke of their work with the BSPCA animal sanctuary and the Feed the Need initiative.

Earlier in the day, Macro Mart delivered a truck full of food supplies and the Year 4 children boxed them up into Ramadan parcels for 155 needy families. BD1,500 was donated by the Junior School for the project and the supermarket added a further BD250 towards the initiative.

Year 4 pupils have also been busy filling 200 shoe boxes with supplies for low paid expats supported by the Migrant Worker’s Protection Society. “We are incredibly proud of the energy and passion that all our children at BSB put into their charitable endeavours.

They have raised an incredible amount of money this year through events that they have often organised themselves,” said assistant head Mark Jones. Now hearts and minds are concentrated on supporting the Ramadan Smile Campaign. This newspaper has teamed up with DHL, the world’s leading express delivery and logistics’ company with regional headquarters in Bahrain, which has promised to deliver the supplies as a gesture of goodwill.

Bahrain Rugby Football Club (BRFC) in Janabiya has offered to act as a collection point for reader donations of packaged toothbrushes and The Multinational School Bahrain, Riffa Views International School and St Christopher’s School have also agreed to receive toothbrush donations from pupils and parents to support the appeal.

The idea behind the Ramadan Smile Campaign came from Aurora Nolasco, a motherof-five, who lives in Amwaj Islands. As reported earlier in GulfWeekly, Aurora, DHL Express Iraq & Afghanistan human resource manager, recently returned from a business trip to the troubled region, and took time during a rest day to visit refugee camps in a Kurdish-controlled area. She explained.

“Refugee camps suffer from a lack of resources, one of which is a lack of products that provide basic hygiene. They have nothing. A simple thing like a toothbrush would make a real difference as the refugees attempt to get their lives back.”