Joined: 07 Jul 2007
Posts: 43
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I saw these in Salt Lake City at the RI Convention. This began as a
Rotary club project and has expanded all over the world. It is quite an
undertaking. It is a good example of showing you the work being done
by Rotary clubs in other parts of the world.
Ron
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First U.S. ShelterBox Response Team members deliver landmark aid
By Janice Chambers
Rotary International News
The Shelterbox that marked 500,000 people helped by the program was
delivered to Jagadeo Argairiya, who has a family of 10, including
five young children.
On her first trip delivering disaster relief for ShelterBox, Trannie
Lacquey encountered Maoist guerillas, crossed swollen rivers on foot,
and hiked miles in a remote, tension-filled corner of Nepal.
But the toughest challenge, says the grandmother of five, was
clearing customs at the airport for 410 ShelterBox relief kits, which
would help hundreds of families trapped by the monsoon floods that
swept Nepal in August. It took 10 days.
"It was tedious and very frustrating. We knew people were waiting,"
she says.
Fortunately, extensive training at a ShelterBox Response Team
training camp in Cornwall, England, paid off, she says. Lacquey and
her husband, John, members of the Rotary Club of Branford, Florida,
USA, and Gary Boe, a member of the Rotary Club of Lewis River,
Washington, USA, were the first U.S. ShelterBox Response Team members
sent on a disaster relief mission.
They also made history, as they delivered the ShelterBox that marked
500,000 disaster victims aided by the Rotarian-sponsored nonprofit.
Shelterbox started as a small project by the Rotary Club of Helston-
Lizard, England, in 2001, but it took off quickly. To date, it has
raised 8,356;15 million and delivered aid in 33 countries. Recently, the
Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles's wife, Camilla, agreed to serve
as president of ShelterBox. She is believed to be the first Royal
Patron of a Rotary club project in the United Kingdom.
Each ShelterBox costs about US$900 and is intended to help a family
of 10 survive for six months. It contains custom supplies that
typically include a large tent, blankets, water purification and
cooking equipment, basic tools, and a multi-fuel stove. Rotary clubs
provide more than half the funding, and private donors contribute the
rest.
The effort also depends on energetic volunteers like the Lacqueys,
who arrived home 1 September after three weeks in Nepal and are now
repacking for a weekend in Blackwater River State Park in Florida,
where they'll help train more response team recruits.
They'll also tell stories from their recent trip. "The rice paddies
were still flooded," John Trannie recalls. "People lost everything.
They were living under tarps in the rain. The living conditions were
just horrible." But through it all, he says, "People would help their
neighbors. It was a very humbling experience for us."
Recently, ShelterBox enjoyed another first. It received its first
Matching Grant from The Rotary Foundation, allowing 24 boxes to be
delivered to northern Ethiopia in October, providing desperately
needed shelter for Sudanese refugees. The grant was funded by the
Rotary clubs of Beaverton, Oregon, USA, and Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. It
is part of a massive effort by ShelterBox, called A Million in
Africa, which intends to provide shelter for one million of Africa's
eight million refugees.
Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary[/img] |
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