I’ve had the call
stripped in a phone box
and now I’m ready to rock and roll.
Shelterbox needs a
hand and I have two, which means I’m fully qualified to head out to Sumatra on
Saturday and do some good.
(Actually, it’s not quite as easy as that. I did have to pass a 9-day
‘ard as nails’ training course)
But by the end of October
I’ll be able to pitch a tent, in the dark, with my hands tied behind my back,
coated from top to toe in anti-mozzy cream. If it goes really well I’ll have
taught about a hundred people to do it too.
You see SRT’s have a
really important job to do, because if we don’t do it the chaps who sponsor the
money to pay for the equipment that goes in the box, the hard working bods who
pack the boxes ready to stack and the super organised team who get them
delivered to where they need to go, will have wasted valuable time and money.
For Shelterbox to be
successful they’ve got to make sense of a huge logistical nightmare! Imagine
what would happen if all the boxes just turned up at the site of an earthquake,
unannounced? Most of the local people will have lost family, friends, and
probably their home. They ‘d have difficulty knowing how to set up the wood-burning
stove; they’d also be pretty stuck translating the English instructions for the
10-man tents. But that’s where we step in…. the Shelterbox Response Team (SRT)
Simply put, this is
what we do:
We get the boxes out
of Customs.
We talk to local
Rotary representatives to find out the lay of the land and who has been
affected.
We reccie potential
sites, so we can set up tent villages for those most in need.
We teach local people
to pitch the tents and use the equipment
We tell Shelterbox HQ
if more boxes are needed
And finally…
We get home safe and
sound because job’s a goodun’.
Smoke me a kipper I’ll
be back for breakfast!
And that’s it in a
nutshell. On Saturday I’m off to do this incredible job, and no doubt I’ll be a
very different person when I get back. I won’t lie to you; I am feeling more
than just a little bit nervous right now.
It’s a huge responsibility and a great privilege; I just hope I don’t
let my team down. And anyway I need to get home in one piece or my Mother will kill
me!
So until I see you on
the other side…
Sal x
