A remarkable charity is preparing to send its last aid consigment. Jane Honey reports

A WEST Devon charity which has been sending aid to desperately poor people in Africa for the last 32 years is preparing to send its very last consignment.

Operation Sunshine has been sending second-hand clothes, bicycles, sewing machines, medical and educational supplies, cooking equipment, books and bedding, plus much more to Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda and Mozambique since the early 1980s.

Ann Tregarthen, who has been the South West regional organiser for the charity for the last three years, said: 'When we first started collecting items, it was in sitting rooms. Then we went on to garages, then the Lions would take it up to Exeter in their mini bus, then Cyril Worth took his vans up there for us — it just grew and grew.

'We started with one 20ft container a year and we are finishing with six 40ft ones a year.'

Ann said the decision to wind up the Tavistock branch of the charity — there is another branch in Folkestone — had been hard, sad, but unanimous.

'We are all getting older, everyone of us are volunteers, and also the majority of our fundraisers are wanting to retire but younger people are not coming in to replace them,' she said.

'Plus, the cost of the containers is now astronomical and an increasing number of African governments don't want second-hand clothing any more — even if the people do.'

Ann said some weeks there could be as many as 30 volunteers working to pack and sort the donated goods at the charity's base at Hurdwick Farm, just outside Tavistock. In addition, a fundraising team holds events to cover the cost of sending the containers to Africa — the last one topped £13,000.

That the charity has involved so many is demonstrated by the 200 people who attended the Operation Sunshine 30th anniversary celebrations two years ago.

'It's touched so many people. It's been a way for people to get together, we have a marvellous team, but when I worked it out, the majority of the people are aged between 75 and 86!' said Ann, who paid tribute to the many people and organisations who had helped Operation Sunshine over the years — particularly the Squire family of Hurdwick Farm, who have provided buildings in which the goods could be sorted and stored.

Ann said: 'They have been incredibly generous to us for 18 years — they have been marvellous.'

Operation Sunshine, through its consignments of goods, has helped dozens of projects, including aid for refugees in Northern Tanzania, the Liteta Leper Colony, the Kachale village for lepers and their families, nurseries, schools and many orphanages caring for children who have been abandoned either through poverty or as a result of the HIV/AIDS virus.

Ann has seen for herself how important the donated goods have been for those who have so little.

She has visited Africa three times, along with Tavistock branch charity founding member Felicity Derry-Thomas, to see the projects and meet the people.

'It was an absolutely amazing experience. We went out to the towns in the bush and people there are living on less than a dollar a day. We met children in Tanzania who literally just lived in dirty rags, and it was so exciting to see things we had packed here, being given to people out there.

'Also, what we have tried to do is give people self-sufficiency as far as we can, by giving them bicycles, sewing machines, educational equipment etc.'

The goods are sorted and colour-coded at Hurdwick, so they will be opened by the right contacts in Africa, depending on which particular project is being helped.

It has been a full time job for Ann, who receives emails and telephone calls at all times of the day, seven days a week.

The penultimate Operation Sunshine container was loaded at Hurdwick Farm on Saturday.

The last container will be sent to Africa in February. Donations of bibles, dictionaries, Wellington boots, rice and educational supplies would be particularly welcome.

From then, Ann said she was looking forward to a rest — and time to give her garden a little TLC.

'It will be sad when we send the last one. But the bible says for everything there is a season — and we have had a marvellous season,' said Ann.

l To make a donation to Operation Sunshine, see http://www.opsunshinesouthwest.org.uk">www.opsunshinesouthwest.org.uk