The BreadBasket Shelter Boxes

Many of you have seen pictures of the large tan tents and big green boxes that were brought to the Philippines during the recent typhoons. During that time, two of the ShelterBox volunteers were in the Clark Freeport Zone where 300 of the big green boxes were stored overnight and distributed the next day to Pangasinan.

During that period I was able to interview Graham Higgins and David Webber; both from England and serve as volunteers for ShelterBox. David Webber told me that he was a volunteer in the warehouse in England for 1 yr; first yr as SRT (ShelterBox Response Team) During that year he has been to Sir Lanka, Niger, and the Philippines. He said "Everyplace is completely different; Sri Lanka was the hardest since a civil war was going on at the time. Clearing customs with no duty for almost 500 boxes was very difficult; and we had to unpack every single box to show there were no weapons inside, and we were dealing with equipment from both Singapore and Dubai. Then we had to get clearance to move the equipment again, and of course ourselves, where there were 300,000 refugees. That trip took about 10 days." He continued by explaining "The temperature was 40 C and very humid, and if that were not bad enough there was a lot of military and bureaucracy, and many roadblocks all over the place in Colombo, and even suicide bombings."

Asked "Why do you volunteer for ShelterBox," David replied "It's an opportunity to put something back, which a lot of us feel." He explained that a lot of people want to do something of a charitable nature, work on committees, work with service clubs, NGOs, or other civic organizations. David continued by saying "Shelter Box offers a unique opportunity to serve. The big advantage that Shelter Box has, is that it works very closely with Rotary, and almost all money donated goes directly to help people. We like working with Rotary because we know that when we arrive, transportation and most of the details have been arranged already and we can hit the ground running."

When I said there has to be something rewarding to provide a home for people that have lost everything due to a calamity, he replied "when you give a family a ShelterBox, you are doing more than giving them a place to live; you are giving them some of their dignity back." He continued by saying "when you go to Sri Lanka you have at least 10,000 who are in serious condition. There is a lot of explosive mine damage, gunshots wounds, young girls that have been raped, and injured small babies. There's a lot of need there."

I asked if you ever felt insecure in that situation, to which he answered "Yes, you have the army there, and you hope they are on your side, but you never know, and there are between five and ten thousand terrorists, so you don't know who is your friend and who is your enemy."

Graham Higgins, the Shelter Box Team Leader said he became involved with Shelter Box just after the tsunami, but found the headquarters overrun with people, so decided to leave and come back a couple of months later. He and his wife went back and worked later at the Shelter Box headquarters and during that time found out about the ShelterBox Response Team. "After training for SRT, we started being sent out with the Shelter Boxes to countries where they are needed." When asked how he felt when others, especially government officials, take credit for Shelter Boxes being brought to their area, Graham replied with "Yes, we hate that, but the tents are well-marked with ShelterBox, (and the Rotary emblem) so we hope that's enough."

Team Leader Higgins explained that normally a SRT is composed of four members, with two getting the equipment out of customs and to a deployment site, while the other two are looking at and researching the disaster area. "On this particular deployment we decided that two people could do all the necessary work, so it saved a lot of money for ShelterBox with just me and David on this trip." When asked if the same team stayed together all the time I was told, "No, we are mixed and matched from all over the world. Originally it was just English SRTs, but we now have Canadians, Australians, Americans, and we are starting to get French and Italian. So it is great if you have a French speaking member if you are in French speaking parts of Africa. We are trying to get as many different languages spoken in our SRTs as possible. "

The SRT trains the local people how to put up the tents and operate the water purification equipment, stoves, etc. Much of the time it is done with visual instructions repeated until the locals understand how to do it. Higgins said "We could never put up four hundred tents, so we rely on being able to instruct others how to do it."

Graham has been in the deployment section of ShelterBox for three years and has made seven trips to countries where disasters have destroyed homes. Those trips not only included Sri Lanka as was described by David, but earthquakes in various countries, flooding in Brazil, and other sites not seen on any travel brochure. He explained that they do not see the countries from a beach with other tourists, but "you see the real country and work very closely with some very amazing people."

It was a delightful day and a half with both Graham Higgins and David Weber; two remarkable men who take time from their professions in England to travel and bring hope and dignity to others as volunteers with ShelterBox. It is a wonderful program, and one which brought new homes to over 10,000 people in the Philippines.

Each Shelter box contains not only a tent, but other items depending on the needs of the residents of the country to which the box is shipped. It may contain blankets, emergency clothing, stoves, etc. The basic cost of a Shelter box is 590 English pounds. About half of that cost is donated by Rotarians, the other half from other groups and individuals. If you want to know how you can help ShelterBox, just email me, Ron Nethercutt, jazzprof@gmail.com

the boxes come in - - -


- - - The tents go up