With your help the people of West Africa have "a chance, not only to change their own lives and their own destinies, but to change the future of an entire generation".

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Fly ME Day!

Today is Fly Me Day.... we have invited over 150people this year, but with a difference.... we have focused on Queen Mothers and the children from their community. Twenty Queen Mothers have each been invited to come with five of their community children. In addition we have invited twenty from Techiman and ten from another school nearby, and of course Battorkope and a another nearby village who are the first beneficiaries of the airborne outreach activities.

Sadly, some have not understood the value of what we do. Some have asked for money to come to the event, and T Shirts and caps... We simply do not respond to such an approach. If the community cannot make the efforts themselves, they cannot benefit. The cost of getting to us from the communities in question is less than they spend on a new dress - and we believe that they need to demonstrate a 'desire for self-priority adjustment' as a primary change in attitude towards greater health.

What they do not know is that we will be giving out prizes and gifts to the children and a small financial gift for development of their community.

THis years line up of Pilots is Melissa Pemberton (9G ZAE), Patrick Ata (9G ZAC), Patricia Mawuli Nyekdzi (9G ZKT) and Capt. Yaw (9G ZAF)...
Lydia, Juliet and Emmanuella are on 'loadmaster duties' - that is putting passengers in and out of the planes!

Jenny Jocksh has flown in for the weekend to help and is running the passenger control - her title is 'Flight Line Queen' (control of the access to and from the flight line and photo taking with a polaroid (thanks to the Pembertons) of each child who flies...

Michaela Hayes is on 'first Aid Post and Queen Mother interaction, community liason' - probably the most important role for outcomes down the line.

Ben Sholes is 'Ring Master' and gets to try to herd the cats - getting cars in the right place and people control (includes all the headaches - poor Ben!!!)
Two staff have volunteered for security roles (Lele and Bernard)
Many students and friends will be helping too, special thanks to Paul H (safety car and fix it man), Soumya and family (marshalling and passenger pre- post-interaction), Aunty Judy (flight line support and gift support).

Special thanks go to Millward Brown for their financial support this year. We are, once again, running the event at a loss and thank WAASPS for covering over 60% of the event. 
We see the importance of this event and look forward to sharing the outcomes with you tomorrow!

(NOTE: We do not announce the date of this event in advance, except to invited guests, since we can get overwhelmed with 'opportunists'. If we exceed 300 people on the airfield we need to shut down operations under the regulations, and it is simply a way of working, but it makes it hard to gain support for the event. )

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