The horror in Haiti

Obviously the story of the moment is the devastating earthquake in Haiti and I can't add any suitable words to the very many that have already been written and spoken by others. Like I guess a good many other people my knowledge of this state is fairly hazy but click here to read an informative summary about Haiti with some clues as to why it is so impoverished. Thanks to 'The First Post' for this information by the way - it certainly enlightened me.

Speed is of the essence of course in bringing relief and hopefully saving some lives. I want to draw attention to two fantastic organisations from the south west right in the forefront in helping the situation. The first of these is the now well known charity 'Shelterbox' who I believe are already familiar with Haiti following earlier hurricane damage. I've written about them before so I'll just remind folk that they are based down west in Helston and are well geared up to move very fast. Their website is here.

The other one to mention is 'RAPID-UK'. Perhaps not so much in the public consciousness as Shelterbox. As they say on their website here :

"RAPID-UK exists to provide experienced disaster response personnel anywhere in the world when required and to facilitate sustainable training and mitigation programmes in disaster prone countries."

R.A.P.I.D is an acronym for Rescue and Preparedness in Disasters. I understand that it is based at Jacobstowe in West Devon. As with Shelterbox they are already there in Haiti, trying to do what they can. I think that both Shelterbox and RAPID-UK are absolutely brilliant; there may well be some aspects of life in my country that one should be embarrassed about but when it comes to disaster relief I can honestly state that "I'm proud to be British"

Joanna Lumley becomes a Shelterbox Patron

Fairly recently I wrote about a TV programme in which Joanna Lumley achieved a childhood ambition to see 'The Northern Lights'. This was before the stunning success she achieved in leading the campaign to secure rights for Gurkhas wishing to settle in this country. I have long realised that under that soft silky exterior was a woman of steel and was unsurprised when she put that attribute to such good use in skewering Phil Woolas and Gordon Brown over that issue. She did it with great style it has to be said.

In this blog I have sung the praises of 'Shelterbox' a few times - their website is here by the way. If you were to click on news and scroll down to the early part of this month you will see an entry stating that Joanna is becoming a patron of the charity. She is known to be very enthusiastic about the work that Shelterbox have done and continue to do and having her now identified so close to the organisation is absolutely brilliant news.

'Shelterbox' poised to help quake victims

"To provide humanitarian aid worldwide in the form of shelter, warmth and dignity to people displaced by natural and other disasters.” This is the mission statement of the Cornwall based charity 'Shelterbox'. Less than 24 hours ago, and in the middle of the night, a large earthquake struck in the middle of Italy but today I heard Tom Henderson, the founder of Shelterbox, say that his organisation are already on the case with staff based in France going to the scene of destruction to make an assessment of what is needed.

I've written about 'Shelterbox' before and make no apology for again flagging up their marvellous achievements. It was in 2001 they made their first deliveries of the boxes and of course it was following the boxing day tsunami of 2004 that they became so widely known. Last year saw them reach an incredible milestone: they had helped people in no less than 50 countries! For me they tick so many boxes (unintended pun) - the kit in the boxes is of immediate practical value, their response to a disaster is extremely quick and also their admin costs are I understand markedly lower than that of other relief organisations leaving more of your pounds being of direct help to those who need it.

Yes this is a truly remarkable charity. Their website is here.

Thunderstorm brings dry spell to end

The last few days have been warm, dry and sunny but as so often happens a thundery low pressure has moved north from France to spoil things. So yesterday the weather started going downhill and in the evening lightning lit up the sky, thunder rolled and there were some heavy downpours. Although we have had severe thunderstorms in the past it very often seems to be worse to the east and south of us and so it was last night. Certainly there was a reasonable gap between flash and thunder - I think a 5 second time gap between the two is equivalent to about a mile away in distance and this seemed to be as near as it got.

I have to say that I'm not too enthusiastic about thunderstorms but nevertheless am in awe of the power of natural phenomena. What happens in Britain of course pales into insignificance compared with recent events in SE Asia. First there was the cyclone in Burma and now the devastating earthquake in China. Another 1000 shelterboxes left East Midlands airport for Burma this week and I think I heard that the Charity are now gearing up to send supplies to China. Another Westcountry based Charity, RAPID UK, whose office is at Jacobstowe near Okehampton in Devon, has a team on standby to be deployed to China if needed. RAPID is an acronym for "Rescue and Preparedness in Disasters" and their well trained volunteers are always ready to assist when an earthquake or similar disaster occurs anywhere in the World. Much more about them can be found at their website here.

What brilliant organisations these two are! More power to their elbow!

Shelterboxes arrive in Burma

Following on from the devastating impact of Cyclone Nargis in Burma at the end of last week relief agencies are trying to help. The storm tracked across the Irrawaddy Delta leaving anything from 20,000 up to 100,000 or more dead in its wake. Unfortunately the military junta who have ruled the oppressed Burmese for well over forty years are making things difficult for would be helpers. The latest I've heard is that they are prepared to take relief supplies from other parts of the World providing they can distribute it themselves. It's become abundantly clear that the clique who run this country cannot adequately do the job and need western expertise. I also read that Burma's government had been given a couple of days warning by India's Met Office of the likely track of the storm but really didn't help their people prepare for this calamity. It would be absolutely fair to say that thousands more have lost their lives because of the neglect of this deplorable regime.

On a more positive note it is good to hear that Cornish based charity 'ShelterBox' is on the scene with hundreds of their boxes either arrived or in transit to Burma. Four of their response team are over there and have secured visas so hopefully things will now kick on. A reminder that the ShelterBox Trust was set up by the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard and has helped about half a million people in 70 plus disaster areas. At the time of the Asian Tsunami 'ShelterBox' really caught the imagination of the public and in a way, I think, no other relief organisation has done before. Interestingly as a charity it seems to be able to gain access to certain semi closed societies - witness the fact that it helped North Korea in its hour of need not so long ago.

It's possible to read a lot more about 'Shelterbox' by going to their website here. The average all in cost of one box is £490 and this is for a family of 10. I like the way the site breaks this down to some of its elements, for example £8 buys a pair of mosquito nets. So it's possible to get a real sense of what your donation can do. Yes it's a truly fantastic charity.

Now ShelterBox to help Mexicans

In the aftermath of the huge Asian tsunami a charity based in Helston, Cornwall got a lot of media attention. ShelterBox, the brainchild of Tom Henderson, developed a very simple way of sending practical aid to people anywhere affected by natural and other disasters - floods, tidal waves, earthquakes, war whatever.

Their mission statement is "To provide humanitarian aid worldwide in the form of shelter, warmth and comfort to people displaced by natural and other disasters." The brilliantly simple way they do this is to provide tough green plastic boxes each of which contains a 10 person tent and ancillary equipment to enable 10 people to survive for at least 6 months. These ancillaries will depend on the location to which the boxes are destined. Examples of included items that have been sent are insulated groundsheets, thermal blankets, cooking equipment and water purification tablets. Having seen one of their boxes and what they can get into it well it's truly amazing.

The whole box and its contents would cost about £500 but the wonderful thing is that ShelterBox tell you on their website here what the individual constituents cost. So maybe one would like to send them a donation for one sleeping bag say - you will know exactly what that is and you can be sure that is how your money will be spent. For those folk understandably wary of how much 'slippage' there is any donation to a charity for admin, wages, etc this is like a breath of fresh air.

As a passionate environmentalist I do get concerned at times about the ever increasing amount of air traffic but always try to look at issues from a balanced perspective. Thus I say thank goodness for successful airline companies who have the capacity to get the ShelterBoxes quickly and cheaply to foreign airports. Yes there are pluses when it comes to air travel!

Not surprisingly ShelterBox are organising deliveries to southern Mexico in response to the severe flooding in the Tabasco region. What I found interesting though was the deployment of some 200 boxes to North Korea last month following floods in that impoverished country. That state is usually pretty well out of bounds to westerners and I once saw some disturbing TV footage which demonstrated the complete indoctrination of children in North Korea to hate the west. So the efforts of ShelterBox in helping that country has an incalculable benefit in showing them that we are not all ogres, apart from the direct humanitarian aid that they are receiving.

I just cannot speak too highly of this wonderful charity.