Shelterbox visit Rotary Club

By Robert Lloyd

The guest speaker at the weekly meeting of Llanelli Rotary Club held at the Stradey Park Hotel, Llanelli, was Malcolm Shead from the Shelterbox Response Team.

Mr Shead is from Llandeilo and recently visited Burma to help some of the 70,000 people believed to have been displaced by civil unrest.

Mr Shead, who works from his home in Bridge Street, Llandeilo, has been working with the ShelterBox project for more than four years.

ShelterBox is supported by Rotary clubs worldwide.

The UK charity ships out boxes with essential survival kit to countries hit by natural disasters and war.

Mr Shead said he was proud to be involved with ShelterBox.

“The first time I went away it was the earthquake in Chile,” he said. “Two years ago I went to some bad flooding in Colombia, and last year I was in the Peruvian Amazon, which experienced the worst flooding in the Amazon basin for 40 years.”

ShelterBox cater their aid boxes to the needs of the people on the ground and can include kit such as specially-made 10-man tents, cooking equipment, sleeping bags, tools, mosquito nets and water purification systems.

“When people think of aid, they think of medication or food, but shelter can be equally as important,” said Mr Shead.

He added that one of the challenges of the role was getting aid from the airport to the people in need.

“The boxes are sent by HQ and will land in any airport in the country,” he said.

“We have to work with the locals to get the boxes where they are needed, sometimes covering thousands of kilometres.”

And Mr Shead said people who donate to ShelterBox can see the benefits of their cash, adding: “Each of these boxes has an individual number so people can monitor where they go.”

Mr Shead is pictured with, left, Llanelli Rotary President Alan Owen, and, right incoming president Ken Abban.

Weblink to Shelter Box website: http://www.shelterbox.org/