Airline pilots conduct charity drive for Nepal
A boy lights a candle during a candle light vigil to remember the victims of last week's earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal 2 May 2015. Photo: Reuters
SINGAPORE — The Air Line Pilots Association, Singapore (ALPA-S) is conducting a charity drive to collect survival items and fly them to Nepal.
All cash donations will be handed over to Singapore Red Cross.
Today (May 2) was the first day of its drive, launched by Minister for Foreign Affairs K Shanmugam at Ulu Pandan Community Club. The next collection session will be at Ulu Pandan Community Club on May 9 and 10 between 10am to 5pm.
Targeted items of the donation drive include medical supplies, medication for communicable diseases such as fever and diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting, ponchos, sleeping bags and tents.
ALPA-S said this is because most of the people in Nepal are sleeping outdoors in low temperatures and rain is expected next week. Today, 10 cartons of medical supplies, 60 ponchos, 60 sleeping bags and 30 tents were collected.
Some 12,000 blankets have been donated by Singapore Airlines. A third of these blankets will be sent to Nepal on a scheduled SilkAir flight, MI412, on Sunday.
The blankets were a request by Hope Worldwide, an international NGO which has been a long-term charity partner of ALPA-S. The blankets have since been packed and are currently at Changi Freight Centre.
This will be the third attempt to fly the blankets over to Kathmandu.
“The problem with Kathmandu, unlike other places, is that it is one of the world’s most challenging airports to land,” said Captain Yang Siew, charity chairman of ALPA-S. “It is a basin where aircrafts have to come in at 13,000 feet and then go through a crack on the basin itself and then start its descent. So at any one time, you cannot have more than one aircraft into that place.”
Mr Shanmugam said: “There are things only the government can do, like sending the SAF, like sending the SCDF, like putting in money as a seed fund and asking the Red Cross to do things. At the same time, if it is only the government, then that doesn’t represent truly the soul of Singapore but if the people come forward and join hands and do things, then you see it’s something that is instinctive, it’s in us.” CHANNEL NEWSASIA
