Shelterboxes for flood victims

A BRITISH aid agency has joined the growing number of international donors committing themselves to the cause of flood victims in northern Namibia.

Shelterbox, a global Rotary Club Project, will deliver 200 of its trademark aid boxes to flood-stricken areas. Each box is designed to support a family of up to ten people for around six months.The boxes contain non-food items such as a tent, a stove, blankets and cooking pots worth £490 (about N$6 600). According to Tom Lay, one of the volunteers the agency has sent to Namibia to help in the effort, the boxes are meant to restore ‘shelter, comfort and dignity’. Lay said the agency decided Namibia would need aid at the beginning of last week.After initially deciding to send only monitors to assess the situation, Shelterbox revised its decision after receiving reports of more extensive flooding. It then decided to send aid boxes stored in Dubai to Namibia. According to Lay, the contents of the boxes are adjusted to meet the needs of the areas they are sent to. For example, African boxes get a heat-resistant tent and a wood-fired stove instead of a fuel-fired one. Most boxes even contain materials to keep children occupied. Shelterbox specialises in rapid response to international disasters or conflicts and always has a number of aid boxes ready to distribute.The agency is publicly funded and is based in Cornwall in the southern UK. Shelterbox only works with volunteers and the two in Namibia currently receive no pay for their work.Back in the UK, Lay is a photographer while his colleague Jon Chalcraft is a consultant. Namibia is Lay’s fifth deployment with the agency, having been to disaster areas such as China during its massive earthquake a few years back and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.