What's In The Big Box?

It's taken two years in the planning, paperwork and preparation as well as two months in the actual shipping  roughly 12000 miles from Bury St Edmunds to Canitoan Barangay, Cagayan De Oro City in the Philippines, but after various delays and difficulties along the way, our 40 foot container of medical aid  finally arrived at its destination this week.

Now it was time for the excited recipients to find out exactly what was in this great big box all the way from England.

Despite the full heat of the sun many willing hands spent hours carefully unloading and sorting the contents; 630 packages, 77 cubic metres in volume and over 8 tons in weight - a soft play room and specialist wheel chairs for disabled children, a full baby delivery suite for the local health centre, proper hospital beds, walking sticks and mobility aids, a dentist's chair and utensils, bandages, syringes and needles, autoclave sterilising machines, tools, computers, school books, boxes of blankets - so many boxes. Soon most of the basketball court was covered with boxes of equipment that will bring better health care to many thousands of people.

As well as showing their appreciation to us, and the other organisations involved in the container shipment, with this banner of recognition; the local barangay councillors and church leaders gathered together in a special thanksgiving service to praise God for all that He had done for them in the provision of such help in their time of need.
Canitoan Barangay suffered substantial damage in the flooding that followed Typhoon "Washi" last December and several families are still living  in an "Alternative Transitional Shelter  ( the partly built  new medical centre building) in the background of this photo, until new permanent homes can be provided for them. In the meantime the equipment that we have supplied for it will be put to good use in the old medical centre at the other end of the village.

We too thank God for allowing us to achieve this, along with our partners Aid to Hospitals Worldwide, Rotary UK and Lifenet Children's Foundation. However a special vote of thanks goes to Bernadita Amor, social worker at Philippine Relief and Development Services (PHILRADS) who handled all the complex paperwork with all the different agencies and officials with great efficiency, tact and tenacity!