Meeting Needs continues to support Tanzanian bush ambulance service

Event industry foundation Meeting Needs is again supporting Village Africa in Tanzania by funding their mountain ambulance service for six months.

Meeting Needs has agreed a grant of £5,194 – the budgeted cost of supporting the project for six months – and a large slice of this came from the £2080 raised by Greengage in May. Greengage chose the Village Africa project as the recipient of their efforts.

Village Africa is a UK-registered charity whose work is based in a village called Yamba, high in the West Usambara Mountains in the Tanga region. It is a three-hour drive on rough terrain and a four-wheel drive vehicle is necessary. It is a two-day walk to hospital otherwise.

The service has a potential catchment of 7,000 people and is available 24 hours a day free of charge to the community. Meeting Needs originally helped pay for the purchase of the ambulance back in 2011 and has supported the project a couple of times since with maintenance and running costs. The ambulance is used to transfer emergency patients to hospital – there were 52 such events last year – in addition to maternity and other needs.

Village Africa has greatly reduced the mortality rate since the charity started in 2006. Common problems are malaria, pneumonia, complications in childbirth, broken bones and snake bites. Many of the patients are babies, children, pregnant women and the elderly. The ambulance service covers Yamba, Milingano and Makanya.