Blanket appeal for Pakistan

A Hexham charity is embarking on more projects to bring hope and healing to some of needy parts of the world.

Mercy Trucks is a volunteer Christian relief organization who work to link resources to needs by using trucks, shipping containers and other means of transport to undertake relief initiatives with speed and efficiency.

Mercy Trucks. Earlier this year took a mobile dental clinic to the Ukraine and also responded to the tsunami in Asia by taking aid and construction equipment and assisted with many projects including clearing up after the tsunami, giving out water purification units and family resettlement packs, the building of 225 temporary homes and agricultural development projects in Sri Lanka.

The founders of Mercy Trucks, Roy and Catherine Dixon returned to set up another exciting project to help bring free health care and community development to some of the people of Guinea Bissau, one of the poorest countries in West Africa. They are setting up a project to convert second hand shipping containers into mobile medical clinics. This is an efficient method of logistics allowing medical care to be taken to the poor and needy in isolated communities throughout Guinea Bissau and hopefully later, other parts of Africa.

However while setting up this, the third project this year, the Pakistan earthquake disaster struck. We now have a tight schedule to continue collecting, sorting and packing blankets and medical aid for the volunteers to give out in Pakistan, then to take the truck and tailor full of medical equipment down to West Africa and set that project going, try and get back to the UK and then return to carry on with new projects in Sri Lanka before the end of January.

We worked on collecting pillows, duvets, blankets, crutches and Zimmer frames from the south of England and helped load a 40foot container that was shipped out on Friday the 18th of November. We then collected the same from the North of England over the following week. These were sorted and packed by volunteers at Hexham Community Church and on Wednesday 7th of December, we took them to Pakistan International Airlines Cargo section at Heathrow Airport, London to be flown to Karachi for onward transportation and to be handed out to help some of the needy in the areas affected by this terrible earthquake.