What joined the the little blackboards?

Last time our little blackboards were waiting in Maidenhead for the start of their trip to Taiama.  They were not alone! Over the last few months, hundreds of donated items have come here from all over Britain. During the lockdown here, a lot of people have been knitting baby clothes and blankets.  These, together with medical supplies and school textbooks, have all been packed into boxes and suitcases and stored in garages, sheds and gardens around the area.

How do you coordinate items for shipping?

Finally the great day arrived at last. The shipping container would come to be filled with our things. First everything needed to be moved to where the container was being brought.  For this we enlisted the help of a lot of strong people, whose families had come from all over the world.  Vans and big cars came to be loaded to the limit, then delivered their bags and boxes, furniture and supplies to the container.

Garages were cleared out – almost their entire contents transferred to big lorries. All this activity had a time pressure – the container had to be packed completely in only a few hours, so our small army of helpers from all over the world worked fast!  It was wonderful to see our international group of people all joining together to ensure our collected supplies would reach Sierra Leone safely and efficiently.

How do you go about packing a container?

There were a group of professional packers who came from London, who left not a cubic centimetre of space free in the shipping container. Trowels and blackboards were fitted in little corners between tables and chairs, while rakes slotted in behind school shelves.  It was like an enormous exciting jigsaw puzzle – with experts completing the picture.

What happens after we close the container doors?

By late afternoon, it was all done.  Our container was full to capacity and began its journey to the port of Tilbury, in Essex. From there it is loaded onto a ship travelling to Sierra Leone down the west coast of Africa.

It is hopefully getting to the docks in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, in early August.