Shelterbox volunteers return home

The three mile camp set up by ShelterBox in Burma

Local charity action group ShelterBox who provide international support after natural disasters have been very busy in recent months.

Over the past year emergencies in the Sumatra, the Philippines, Samoa, Niger and Mexico have been assisted by the charity.

The charity which sends boxes filled with survival equipment also requires support staff. Many of the support volunteers are now returning home.

Volunteers Lizzy Treglown and Becky Maynard have recently returned from deployments across the globe. Lizzy spent three weeks in the Philippines delivering ShelterBoxes to people who lost everything in Typhoon Ketsana at the end of September killing over 400 people.

Becky was one in a four-man Response Team who headed to Sumatra after two earthquakes struck the Indonesian island in quick succession.

The first earthquakes struck near the city of Padang, with a Richter Scale rating of 7.6 causing over 1,100 people to lose their lives.

Although Becky is now home ShelterBox still have a response team operating in that region and have so far sent aid for up to 10,000 people.

The aid team in Sumatra were helped to deliver aid by the US Navy. You can see pictures of the support operation in Sumatra by clicking here

On her deployment in the Philippines Lizzie helped people devastated by Typhoon Ketsana which which struck Manila in late September.

The typhoon brought the heaviest rains in recorded history leaving 80% of the capital underwater. As of 24 October, the official death toll stood at 464.

Speaking about leaving Manilla after her support work Lizzie said: "It's always difficult when you come back especially because you can never help everybody. It's good to know that the people we helped are now able to start gain and get their lives back on track.

Reflecting on the conditions and difficulties her team faced when they arrived in the Philippines, Lizzie said "The problem we encountered was finding dry space to put our sheloterbox tents.

ShelterBox has provided emergency shelter in more than 80 disasters in over 50 countries People have funded a total of 54550 boxes Each ShelterBox costs an average of £490 A ShelterBox will help up to 10 people

Everywhere we found was either a flood plane, underwater or there was several feet of mud. The main thing was getting our ShelterBox tents up and getting people out of these inhumane evacuation centres."

Talking about the scale of devastation she saw on deployment in Sumatra, Becky said: "Its very difficult, you really have to focus on getting the job done, you cant get swept away in the emotions of it, our key objective is to get people under cover.

"It's only when you come back and reflect on it and actually look at the photos you took at the time that you can understand the level of devastation."

Although both volunteers have completed their deployments they are on standby to return to action alongside the 150 ShelterBox volunteers across the world, if another disaster occurs.