Operation Florian

Some fantastic news.  After contacting the London Fire Service, they put me in touch with Colin and Ian from Operation Florian.   http://www.operationflorian.com/

They have been helping poor communities all over the world for the last 10 years and have been shipping fire equipment to places such as Bosnia, Vietnam and Ecuador. 

After explaining about Mashi, Colin and Ian very kindly offered us the opportunity to ship some boxes over to Ecuador with a container that was due to leave the UK in April.  It became a mad rush to collect as many donated items as we could, which included children’s clothes and toys, plus some bought items such as basic medical equipment and resources for the nursery and school in Loma Grande.  It was amazing how people came together to help Mashi.  Thanks to Vicky and Jamie, Steve’s family, Tiff and Scott, Denise, Claire, Luke, Nikki, Beth, Kate and Lisa who all very kindly donated clothes and toys at very short notice.

The container has now left the UK and hopes to arrive in Ecuador within 4 to 6 weeks.  Once it has cleared customs, the boxes for Mashi will be picked up by the Mashi team in Quito and delivered straight to Loma Grande.  This will be a great help to the community there, 17 boxes full of desperately needed items.

We are very grateful to all those in the UK who have helped with this mission, plus Operation Florian who have been so supportive.  A big thanks to the fire officers in Leyland too who we took the boxes to last week.

Will keep you posted on the progress of the container.

Maria and the fire officers in Leyland unloading

Leyland Fire officers unloading the boxes