Susan Vicary

A few months after her husband?s (David) death, Deri was given the opportunity of working in the rain forest of Indonesian Borneo with the orang-utan. She felt this would probably be her salvation ? it was to be challenging, interesting hard work and extremely time consuming.

During her fourth year in Borneo, she met a vet who had been working with the mountain gorillas in Rwanda and he painted a gruesome picture of the situation out there, mainly due to the genocide and ensuing war and, although in her late sixties, she decided to accept another challenge and see the situation for herself. Unfortunately, she was not fully prepared for the horrors and poverty that greeted her, but could not turn her back on a people who were crying out for help in all directions, especially for clean water.

It soon became evident that, although she might be able to help, the task was enormous and a considerable amount of money would need to be injected if progress was to be made. So,... more

A few months after her husband?s (David) death, Deri was given the opportunity of working in the rain forest of Indonesian Borneo with the orang-utan. She felt this would probably be her salvation ? it was to be challenging, interesting hard work and extremely time consuming.

During her fourth year in Borneo, she met a vet who had been working with the mountain gorillas in Rwanda and he painted a gruesome picture of the situation out there, mainly due to the genocide and ensuing war and, although in her late sixties, she decided to accept another challenge and see the situation for herself. Unfortunately, she was not fully prepared for the horrors and poverty that greeted her, but could not turn her back on a people who were crying out for help in all directions, especially for clean water.

It soon became evident that, although she might be able to help, the task was enormous and a considerable amount of money would need to be injected if progress was to be made. So, in memory of her late husband, she formed the David Rundle Trust (Help for Rwanda) in order to help the people of Rwanda in three main areas ? CLEAN WATER SUPPLIES, EDUCATION and FAMILY PLANNING

Being on the spot for 2 ? 3 months of each year combined with six year?s hands on experience of the area enables the Trust to respond to many local needs in an effective and efficient way without involving the usual overheads.

All the Trust?s running costs are absorbed by Trust members and Deri pays for her own air fare, insurance, food etc. She does not stay in hotels but is accommodated in the villages where she works.

The Trust has built up a list of local contacts from labourers to medical volunteers to people in local government. When a need is identified the Trust can call on its pool of expertise and extend programmes that have already been tried and tested to a professional level. This was the case during the earthquake in Cyungugu when the Trust?s flexibility proved invaluable as it was able to react immediately to the needs of the moment and direct time and funds where they were needed most during this unexpected crisis.