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Tons of Kenya aid stuck in Dubai

A Dubai-based aid worker has collected thousands of clothing items for displaced populations in Kenya.

  • By Alice Johnson, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 00:10 March 19, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • Aid worker Lola Lopez (left) and Michel dos Santos, a medical student, with some of the donations. Lopez has collected thousands of clothing items for children in Kenya.
  • Image Credit: Alice Johnson/Gulf News

Dubai: A Dubai-based aid worker has collected thousands of clothing items for displaced populations in Kenya.

Currently, around three shipping containers will be needed for the collection.

Donation delivery may be hampered, however, as the complementary shipping that had been offered has been withdrawn.

Lola Lopez started the Kenya Clothing Campaign in association with Save the Children to send aid to more than 600,000 people in the African country. According to the charity, around 63 per cent of those in need are children.

Lopez, a Dubai-based British aid worker, left her job as a personal assistant last October to pursue voluntary work full-time.

The campaign is now in its final stages, although there are some items that are still desperately needed.

Lopez said: "The response from people in Dubai has been phenomenal - we've collected so many clothes that we now can't accept any more. What the Kenyan people really need are medical items like syringes, malaria treatments and water purification tablets, as well as basic first aid items like plasters. The rainy season is coming, so mosquito nets, umbrellas and tents are really needed as well, so now we're looking for monetary donations to buy these items." Several companies here have given donations

The clothing will be sorted by a team of more than 40 volunteers at a warehouse in Al Quoz on Friday March 21.

Lopez will be distributing the donations in six Kenyan towns, including Nairobi, Eldoret and Naikura, with a team of six volunteers in early April.

Lopez said: "What makes me want to help is that I think that I could have been born in Kenya. That could have been me. That's what inspires me."

A donation of Dh10, says Lopez, can feed an African child for a week.

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