- Joined
- Oct 10, 2004
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I joined the BMS as a lifetime member several decades ago, it's an organisation that as well as acting as a social hub it involves itself in charitable works in Morocco and I've been on two inspection visits to Morocco with BMS, visiting old folks home, schools, women's cooperatives and other works supported by BMS. More info: https://britishmoroccansociety.org/charities/
This first report is from a couple of weeks ago detailing initial response to the earthquake...
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1. We continue to support the Travel Link Foundation and Assafou Association who are very efficient at volume distribution sending trucks deep into the effected area. The vehicle in the picture contains more than a thousand blankets supplied by the BMS on Wednesday.
2. We continue to distribute directly to villages where we have longstanding relationships. This involves a lot of research and coordination, the villagers are typically walking round trips of eight hours or more to meet us. The appendix below gives more detail.
3. Our motorbike team have had good successes taking small quantities of the more critical items into forward areas. We have been asked for picks and shovels so that the survivors can start to clear roads by hand. It was deeply moving to realise that a shortage of fabric for shrouds in some villages is adding to the distress of grieving families.
4. A water filtration engineer has joined our team. He brought four professional filtration systems and the photograph shows the first being installed today in a substantial field kitchen that is being built in Ouirgane.
5. Sourcing supplies is critical at this stage. Key items like power banks, torches, tents and tarpaulins are sold out in Marrakech. We are grateful to Sophie Martin (wife of the British Ambassador to Morocco), who with a group of other ambassadors wives scoured Rabat to buy a van load of precious items which we will be distributing as you read this. The photo shows Sophie at the British Ambassador’s residence handing these over to Mina Metoui.
6. Encouraged by your support we have the scale and ambition to look seriously at sourcing products Internationally. We have been working hard on that and there are some promising things in development. In this context we are raising our immediate fundraising target to £250,000 Together we are making a very real difference, please continue to help by sharing this fund raiser as widely as you possibly can.
Mike Wood, Chairman
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Appendix. On Tuesday Ella Williams took a transit van and two cars up to Talat n’Yakoub with essential food including: oil, milk, sugar, tea, coffee, rice, canned fish, cheese, washing powder, soap, sanitary pads and flour. The convoy arrived to Tassouakte village in the evening and from there the food was sorted and distributed to families in Tassouakte, Ighil, Tasghdimt, Tafrghost and Ahachi.
A local man on the ground went on foot to six of the surrounding villages and made a list of the number of surviving families in need of aid in each of the seven villages. These are some of the hardest to reach villages in Talat n’Yakoub as they are far from the road and can’t be reached by vehicle. The locals of Ighil, Tasghdimt, Tafrghost and Ahachi came down to Tassouakte this morning to collect the food: Tassouakte – 9 families; Tasghdimt – 9 families; Tafrghost – 18 families; Aharchi - 8 families; Ighil – 25 families.
We are returning on Thursday morning to bring food to: Taos – 25 families; Timizar - 18 families
In addition, we will be bringing blankets, tarpaulins, ropes, sleeping mats, solar powered lights, power banks, torches, soap, baby clothing and underwear to these 7 villages tomorrow.
This first report is from a couple of weeks ago detailing initial response to the earthquake...
_______________________________________________
1. We continue to support the Travel Link Foundation and Assafou Association who are very efficient at volume distribution sending trucks deep into the effected area. The vehicle in the picture contains more than a thousand blankets supplied by the BMS on Wednesday.
2. We continue to distribute directly to villages where we have longstanding relationships. This involves a lot of research and coordination, the villagers are typically walking round trips of eight hours or more to meet us. The appendix below gives more detail.
3. Our motorbike team have had good successes taking small quantities of the more critical items into forward areas. We have been asked for picks and shovels so that the survivors can start to clear roads by hand. It was deeply moving to realise that a shortage of fabric for shrouds in some villages is adding to the distress of grieving families.
4. A water filtration engineer has joined our team. He brought four professional filtration systems and the photograph shows the first being installed today in a substantial field kitchen that is being built in Ouirgane.
5. Sourcing supplies is critical at this stage. Key items like power banks, torches, tents and tarpaulins are sold out in Marrakech. We are grateful to Sophie Martin (wife of the British Ambassador to Morocco), who with a group of other ambassadors wives scoured Rabat to buy a van load of precious items which we will be distributing as you read this. The photo shows Sophie at the British Ambassador’s residence handing these over to Mina Metoui.
6. Encouraged by your support we have the scale and ambition to look seriously at sourcing products Internationally. We have been working hard on that and there are some promising things in development. In this context we are raising our immediate fundraising target to £250,000 Together we are making a very real difference, please continue to help by sharing this fund raiser as widely as you possibly can.
Mike Wood, Chairman
_______________________________________________
Appendix. On Tuesday Ella Williams took a transit van and two cars up to Talat n’Yakoub with essential food including: oil, milk, sugar, tea, coffee, rice, canned fish, cheese, washing powder, soap, sanitary pads and flour. The convoy arrived to Tassouakte village in the evening and from there the food was sorted and distributed to families in Tassouakte, Ighil, Tasghdimt, Tafrghost and Ahachi.
A local man on the ground went on foot to six of the surrounding villages and made a list of the number of surviving families in need of aid in each of the seven villages. These are some of the hardest to reach villages in Talat n’Yakoub as they are far from the road and can’t be reached by vehicle. The locals of Ighil, Tasghdimt, Tafrghost and Ahachi came down to Tassouakte this morning to collect the food: Tassouakte – 9 families; Tasghdimt – 9 families; Tafrghost – 18 families; Aharchi - 8 families; Ighil – 25 families.
We are returning on Thursday morning to bring food to: Taos – 25 families; Timizar - 18 families
In addition, we will be bringing blankets, tarpaulins, ropes, sleeping mats, solar powered lights, power banks, torches, soap, baby clothing and underwear to these 7 villages tomorrow.
