I spent an hour and a half this morning in Sheringham helping load clothes and balnkets onto lorries for the South East Asia Disaster Appeal. The number of people who rolled up with carloads of items was amazing. The queues stretched back in both directions for hundreds of years the whole time I was there. Well done to Tabi from the Sheringham Independent for organising it. Community spirit at its best.
Nice work Iain - except Asia doesn't need clothes. In fact, the Tamil Centre in London was on the news last night urging people not to send clothes because that's not the problem. You can't eat a t-shirt, or build a house out of a pair of jeans, or drink a woolly sweater. Unfortunately that's exactly what people have sent and the aid agencies don't know where to put them. They're certainly not going to waste precious cargo space and fuel sending them to where they're not wanted.
ReplyDeleteI know what you are saying but much of the stuff today was blankets, as well as the odd tent and sleeping bag. I think also the situationis different in different countries.
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