Canadians Care is a series that recognizes the work of various World Vision Canada volunteers, who give selflessly to help us achieve our goal of eradicating poverty and injustice for the world's children.

Donna Cino’s passion for the work of World Vision has taken her places where few retirees ever venture.

In 2009, it was the slums of South Africa; last May, the remote hills of Zambia. Now, it’s vlogging in cyberspace.

“I just did this little video with my pictures of the kids in Africa,” says Cino, 58, at the Victoria home she shares with her husband, son and granddaughter.

Cino never imagined she’d be blogging, much less vlogging, in her semi-retirement.

But that was before she embraced the role of tireless volunteer—leading World Vision’s volunteer team on Vancouver Island, manning its booths at malls and concerts and speaking to churches, schools and conferences about its humanitarian work.

Cino, who became a World Vision child sponsor in 2007, began volunteering with the organization through Destination Life Change, a program that enables Canadians to volunteer abroad on some of its community-based projects.

Travelling to South Africa with nine other Canadians, she spent part of her two weeks there planting trees at schools. She also got to meet her sponsored child, Nhlakanipho.

Since Cino had (with his permission) given him the nickname “Nikki,” he and his grandmother reciprocated by giving her a Zulu name: Busiswe.

“It means ‘Blessed,’” she explains proudly.

This past year, Cino signed up again for Destination Life Change and journeyed to Zambia to help facilitate a photography workshop for local youth.

While in Zambia, Cino received yet another name, this one bestowed upon her by her other sponsored child, Velody. It’s Banene—Tongan for “Grandmother.”

“Put my two names together,” she says, “and I’m now truly a Blessed Grandmother!”

‘It just makes the spine tingle’
Along with her new alias, Cino came home from Zambia with a renewed sense of dedication and hope for the children and families with whom World Vision works. She’s already given numerous presentations on her experience.

“Seeing what I saw, how much of a difference World Vision is making, I’ve just become so passionate,” she says.

A born storyteller, Cino talks about seeing World Vision's work in action: building homes for children orphaned by AIDS, teaching families improved agricultural methods and empowering women through micro-loans to go gain independence as well as an income for the first time.

If Cino has to cite one statistic and tell one story to encapsulate the difference that World Vision is making, it would probably come from Zambia’s Munkolo Rural Hospital, which the organization built in 2007 and staffs full-time with a nurse.

Before the hospital opened, Cino reports, a sad constant in the community was the death of mothers from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. “But they haven’t lost a single mother in the past three years since the hospital was built,” she says.

Cino has also brought back from Africa the immense gratitude of those helped by Canadians through organizations like World Vision.

“So many people I met said to me, ‘We’re so thankful for the people in Canada; tell the people thank you.’

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