SIR,
The Borders group of churches has for a number of years made a small annual donation to various charities.
The money for this comes from a small surplus from advertising in our magazine 'Border News'.
We are particularly grateful to all the loyal local companies who have supported us over a number of years, and to all our supporters and helpers who gave so much of their time freely and between them have allowed this good work to carry on.
This year we are supporting the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – a truly special organisation which does the most amazing work in over 60 countries, delivering emergency aid to people affected by armed conflicts, epidemics, natural or man-made disasters and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
We held a small handover event on Wednesday 30th June at Llangarron Church to present £400 to MSF and the money was receireved on their behalf by Carl Stevenson, a local doctor who has supported MSF and has worked as a volunteer on their operations abroad.
These volunteers work for between nine months and a year abroad, and often leave well paid jobs and they receive only a small stipend to cover expenses.
We were particularly impressed with the work done by MSF in the Haiti earthquake, they already had a presence in this impoverished country and used their expertise and skill both to relieve suffering, set up and deliver emergency medical aid including constructing temporary operating theatres in the country but they also brought the scale of the disaster to the wider world.
They were able to start treating the injured within minutes of the earthquake, despite damage to their medical facilities and many staff being missing.
Bill Webb
(Llangarron)