Medical supplies needed for Wonga Beach couple's mission to Nepal



Published Tuesday April 28 2015, 2:45pm

A Wonga Beach couple are travelling to earthquake-hit Nepal to do what they can to rebuild - and they need your help. 

Tiffany and Luke Short will be flying out to Nepal on Monday to help rebuild the homes of the people hosting their daughter Brydie as she performs humanitarian work. 

Brydie has been in the Nepalese city of Pokhara for some time working with Global Village International (GVI), a humanitarian non-government agency providing humanitarian aid to Nepal. 

Her host parents’ properties in the towns of Pame and Chitwan, close to Pokhara, have been almost completely destroyed. 

Luke Short has been a blocklayer and builder for more than a decade and is travelling over to help the host family rebuild their properties. 

Tiffany is bringing as much medical supplies, blankets and other first aid items she can carry in the couple’s luggage to assist with relief efforts.

She is calling out for assistance to the Douglas Shire community, asking for small, easily transportable first aid and survival items such as bandages, antiseptic cream, antibiotics, water purification tablets, even toothpaste. 

She anything that can be spare will be help to people who have lost everything.

“We’re limited to what we can take due to the baggage weight limits on Malaysia Airlines, so what we’re asking for is things that are small so we can fit as much of them as possible in our luggage.

“We will be distributing these donations to GVI, who is putting together care packages for people affected by the earthquake - they have things like dried noodles, blankets and other things that will help the people there, because they’re just sleeping out on the street.”

Huge numbers of Nepalese citizens have been forced to sleep in tent cities, either from fear that aftershocks will collapse more solid structures on top of them, or because their existing homes have already been completely destroyed.

Donations for the Short’s humanitarian trip can be made by contacting Tiffany through her Facebook page or by drop-off at Wonga Beach State School. 

Nepal was already one of Asia’s poorest countries before the earthquake, which struck with a magnitude of 7.8 the Himalayas on Saturday. 

More than 4,000 people are believed to have been killed, mostly native Nepalese but also a large number of foreigners - including one or more Australians.

Many were taking part in climbing trips of Mt Everest.