TWO British ambulances will be delivered to the Red Cross in Bosnia thanks to the generosity of people from East Lancashire.
Rodney Roberts and his partner, Hazel Maxfield, of West Marton, Earby, and Tony and Dorothy Hindley, of Accrington, will travel first to the former Yugoslavia and then to Romania.
Money and aid from churches and businesses in Accrington and donations from Accrington Rotary Club, of which Tony is a member, and people in East Lancashire have made the trip possible.
Tony and Rodney are members of Medical Education and Social Help, based in Grassington, North Yorkshire, which will send one ambulance by road, a lorry full of aid and a car.
A second ambulance provided by the charity will be flown out to Bosnia by the American Air Force.
Rodney said: "We convert old ambulances to left-hand drive and then take them across. When we go at the end of April, we will be in a convoy.
"After we leave the ambulance with the Red Cross in Tusla we will drive to Romania.
"We will distribute the aid to a village of similar population as Grassington.
Rodney has taken aid over with MESH four times before and Tony made his own independent trip to the countries.
MESH has already provided the village in Romania with toilets for a refugee school and a medical centre.
Rodney said the next project was to provide proper dentistry facilities.
He said: "There is currently one man who has 27,000 patients and no up-to-date facilities. While we are over there we will be assessing what needs to be done before a further visit in the autumn.
"We usually have a few trips, firstly to take aid, then to undertake a project to improve the way of life and to take gifts at Christmas.
"We would like to thank everybody who has supported the charity either through giving money or donating items to be taken across."
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article