Help for Gambia all set to go

A WITHAM businessman is about to dispatch tons of much needed medical and school equipment to Africa.

Kind-hearted Simon Wezel, owner of haulage firm Continental Thomas Boers in Eastways, is co-ordinating the export of a container of aid destined for The Gambia.

With the help of Mr Wezel's Kingfisher Trust, Clacton-based Terry Palmer and other aid-to-Africa organisations, a total of ten tons of books, laboratory equipment, medicines, computers and hospital beds will reach Bansang, a rural community 200 miles inland.

Donations include books from Gosfield School near Braintree, surplus laboratory equipment from Severalls Hospital, Colchester, and gardening tools from Witham United Reformed Church minister the Rev Richard Church.

Mr Wezel, who fought a battle with the Home Office over his guardianship of Gambian-born Sisawo Jobarteh, pioneered contacts in the country with Sisawo's help last year.

He will fly there in March to oversee the arrival of the latest aid but hopes to make the link on-going. " First we will get all the urgent things done. What we need most is money. We need ventilators for babies," he said.

Long-term he wants to establish a social club and library at Bansang Hospital and set up a computer and fax link with the country's capital

to provide a direct advice line.

• Kingfisher Trust can be contacted by writing to Mr Wezel, who is its secretary, at 19 Dunoon Close, Braintree, Essex CM7 6FN, or telephoning him on (0376) 325610