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By Mike Allison
Aid Co-ordinator

The May convoy returned to base just ten days after leaving the UK having covered some three thousand miles of European roads but more importantly having delivered over 20 tons of super aid to Belarus. 

For Ian, Alan and Andy, all well experienced with several previous convoys the journey was routine until they reached the Belarus customs and the agents requested product codes!!  Several late night and early morning calls to the UK and Gomel, help from Lilia, the customs interpreter and the clerks in the agent’s office solved the problem and the delay was kept to a minimum. 

At the co-ordination centre, a regular receiver of aid from us and an organisation, run by volunteers, that supports   many poor and needy families, the unloading went as planned until the piano tested the resolve of all. Afterwards Alan, being the non driver and the financial controller for the convoy, had to drink the traditional vodka toasts for the three of them!  It is reported that he smiled for hours afterwards!

At Dobrush, a social protection unit, the team experienced a very cautious group of receivers that initially wanted to open every box, examine, weigh and count every item. With over 1000 items on the trailer this would have taken days but when Ian pointed out that the manifest contained all the detail required they got to work and the unloading was completed in good time.

Since their return the process of having the aid cleared for distribution has been the work of our team in Gomel and soon all the families and their children, the schools and organisations will benefit from the work of the aid team in the UK and Belarus. A job well done and credit goes to the convoy team and all of the aid team both in the UK and Belarus.

This past weekend we had another loading day when the regular aid team travelled to Southlands at Thorpe Willoughby, Yorkshire on Sunday to commence filling a large trailer for the next convoy and to release some of the space in a full warehouse.  It was another tremendous effort of hard work but with lots of laughter and plenty of stories from the recent convoys.

In July and August the Project will be hosting the annual  holidays in Belarus when over 100 very disabled children and young adults are taken with their carers to a ‘ holiday camp’ called a sanatorium.  Medical students and other volunteers from the UK give up their holidays and raise cash to pay their costs to travel to Belarus to give these unfortunate children the time of their lives. 

The role of he aid team in this is to deliver the games and sports items, the toiletries, cleaning materials, spare clothing etc.  Some of these items were loaded on the Dobrush vehicle and today we have selected further products collected from Glossop and the warehouse and we plan send a small truck in early June. The project has just purchased a minibus to replace one of the older ones in Gomel and we hope to deliver this also in early June.

An appeal: We are not short of aid, quite the opposite! We also have a large team in the UK that travels many miles in some cases to be at the warehouse to load vehicles – on Sunday mornings – and we have a local team that collects aid and controls the warehouse operation. We have sufficient members who are willing and able to convoy but we are always looking for new ones as long as they wish to help the people in Belarus.  What we are short of is MONEY!  To send a large vehicle to Belarus costs £2500 in round figures each convoy. We are so lucky to have regular fund raisers and donators but if we are to continue our work we need your support. Could you organise a fund raiser?  Please help if you can. Thanks.

If you can help with a donation or fund raising your support will have a direct affect on the welfare of some very needy children and their families. Just mention that the donation is for aid deliveries to Belarus. Cheques to CCP(UK). You can donate securely on this site by clicking here.The children in Belarus will be very grateful.