CURRENT and ex-members of Launceston Rotary recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the club’s first humanitarian aid convoy to Kosova.

A few weeks after the cessation of the hostilities in Kosova in 1999, a team from the Rotary Club of Launceston took a 7.5 ton van loaded with aid to the (then) province. Medical items were provided to hospitals and health centres in the Gjakova area in the west of the country and building supplies and clothing delivered to several villages where 80-90% of houses had been destroyed by tank fire.

The Rotarians saw first-hand the devastation caused when Serbian forces entered Kosova and heard of the dreadful atrocities committed during 1998 and 1999.

Within a few months of this first project Launceston Rotarians and other volunteers from the Launceston area again travelled nearly 2,000 miles to Kosova with four 7.5 ton vans loaded with items specifically requested by villages, medical centres, centres for the disabled etc. One van was the first to provide much needed aid to the main hospital at Rahovec.

In 2002, Launceston Rotarians travelled to Minsk, Belarus with aid for several small community centres catering for disabled youngsters and also a children’s hospice — sadly cancer levels are high in Belarus as a direct result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in nearby Ukraine.

Later that same year Launceston Rotarians spent time in Croatia visiting several potential projects and it was at this point that the Club realised that it could not handle them without additional support of other Rotary Clubs. The Rotary District were extremely supportive of Launceston’s endeavours and in 2003 a team of Rotarians from several clubs in the Cornwall and Plymouth area travelled to Kraljevica on Croatia’s coast to prove a much needed recreation area within a home for children suffering from cerebral palsy. The project was a great success and Rotary District 1290’s Overseas Project Team was created.

Over the last 20 years Rotarians have completed 75 projects providing computers for schools, 25 fire appliances, 17 ambulances, items for the disabled and other medical items including dialysis equipment to The Balkans as well as other countries including Belarus, Republic of Georgia, Nepal, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Russia. Team members have been honoured with national and international Rotary awards.

One project resulted in the provision of breathing apparatus and appropriate training to each of Kosova’s 29 fire stations. On another occasion a 4 x 4 fire appliance provided to Albania was in action within less than a week, as the only appliance capable of descending into a ravine to rescue seriously injured passengers of a coach, that crashed through the parapet of a bridge and fell some 14 metres.

Sadly 14 people died in this crash. Many lives have been saved as a direct result of projects undertaken by Rotarians.

The event held at Launceston Golf Club on Monday, October 14 2019, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the departure of the first humanitarian aid vehicle to Kosova, on October 18 1999, was attended by 12 Launceston Rotarians — current and past — directly involved in projects over the years together with other club members.