East York Rotarians work to provide cyclone relief
Couple is in Thailand working with officials
Touring the world when Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, a pair of East Yorkers may have found themselves in exactly the right place - northern Thailand - to mount an aid drop to the stricken area.
Nora Dunn and Kelly Bedford hope to enlist a princess, local businesses in the Thai city of Chiang Mai and the Royal Thai Air Force to deliver a plane-load of supplies to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar (also known as Burma).
The couple, both Rotarians, first planned to send an aid-filled truck over the Burmese border but discovered members of the Rotary Club of Chiang Mai could arrange something better, a transport aircraft from the Thai air force.
"These people are all prominent movers and shakers in the northern Thailand community, with connections galore," Dunn wrote in the pair's blog this week.
But Canadian sanctions against Burma - Canada considers the country's reclusive regime the "most regressive and repressive" in its decades of military-led governments - could block Dunn and Bedford's plan.
Just as they were growing confident they could save some of the million or more lives now at risk in Burma, the couple were given a stern but "ambiguous" warning they may be breaking Canadian law.
"Oh Canada, our home and native land: why do you make it so difficult for us to be good people?!" Dunn wrote Wednesday after hearing from Canada's embassy in Bangkok. "We hope the world does not give up on the millions of hungry and hurting people who are in Burma right now: we haven't."
Dunn, one of the youngest members of the East York Rotary Club, sold her financial planning business and turned 30 before leaving Toronto with Bedford a year ago. The couple sold all their belongings for what they called a "Journey of a Lifetime".
On Sunday, they said despite reports of the Burmese military seizing relief goods, that's not a reason to "simply throw your hands up and do nothing. We have to trust that even the Burmese military has the compassion and human decency to do what is right for their fellow countrymen who are suffering."
Back home, Trevor Sinclair, the East York club's international committee director, agrees. "We recognize there is a risk but you have to take the risk," he said Thursday, May 15.
The club has a link to accept donations on its website, (www.eastyorkrotary.org). On Tuesday night, East York club members voted to drop their other international projects and approved $8,000 of club funds for Dunn.
"We've got a Rotarian who's on the ground and ready to deal with this right now."
The couple needs about $30,000 to fill the cargo plane but can get some of that from Chiang Mai Rotarians.
Neighbouring Thailand is one of the few countries with ties to the regime, but the Thai air force still needs special permission to fly into Burma from Chiang Mai.
Failing this, the couple has said they can send the aid through Red Cross from Bangkok but want Chiang Mai goods to be used. The International Red Cross is on short list of groups Canada trusts to deliver aid in Burma and the couple expects help from Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who runs the Thai Red Cross.
Apart from humanitarian food and medical supplies, Canadian sanctions blocks all exports of goods or money into Burma, even indirectly.
A civil servant himself, Sinclair said he can appreciate why the regulations are there.
At press time Thursday, he said Dunn was collecting all the information he needs to apply for a special export permit.
Bedford is a member of the Beaches Rotary Club. Barb Tingle, membership chair, said he joined less than a year before leaving Toronto but remains a member.
The couple wanted to offer "hands-on help" to people they met on their journey, Tingle recalled this week. "What they wanted to do was help where they could. That's what they've been doing."
