BA combines adventure with charity work

 In a bid to use adventure to improve and save lives in Africa, British Airways is supporting the Outside Edge Africa humanitarian expedition, led by Kingsley Holgate to reach millions of inhabitants of Africans with relief materials.

The expedition, a three-pronged campaign, is expected to move clockwise around the African continent to touch 33 countries where the airline will embark on life saving activities including distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets for malaria prevention, a teaching-on-the-edge literacy campaign and the distribution of spectacles for the poor sighted under the British Airways Right to Sight programme.

One of the memorable places the expedition has reached is the site of the wreckage on November 30th, 1942 of the Dunedin Star, off the coast of Namibia also known as the Skeleton Coast.

Now on its second month, the expedition, which took off from the Cape of Good Hope with nine members, re-echoes the struggle, 65 years ago by those shipwrecked and marooned on the great Dunedin Star, as despite their more modern equipment, the terrain remains resilient and challenging.

Having left the Dunedin Star wreckage site and headed for the mouth of the Kunene River on their way to Angola, leader of expedition, Kingsley Holgate, while explaining the difficulty of the terrain stated that although the distance between Angola and the north bank of Kunene was only one kilometre, the expedition had to make “a 12 day detour through Kaokaland to get back to the river at Ruacana,” then cross into Angola and then work all the way back to the north bank of the Kunene River.

To date, the British Airways supported Africa Outside Edge expedition has distributed has distributed 20 mobile libraries to remote schools up the West Coast of South Africa and around Luderitz and Walvis Bay.

Long lasting mosquito nets have been distributed to mothers and babies, who are more vulnerable to malaria attack, around the Kunene River, while bales of mosquito nets are awaiting the arrival of the expedition in Angola, whereas the Right to Sight programme has commenced in these areas.