Oxygen Appeal Update: £22k raised in first week & already working hard for Malawi

24 February 2021

We're keen to say a HUGE thank you to all who have donated in the first week of our Scotland-Malawi Emergency Oxygen Appeal. A fantastic £22,539 has already been raised, as of 23rd February.

We’re keen to say a HUGE thank you to all who have donated in the first week of our Scotland-Malawi Emergency Oxygen Appeal. A fantastic £22,539 has already been raised, as of 23rd February.

We’re particularly keen to thank the Scottish Episcopal Church’s Global Partnerships Committee, the University of Strathclyde’s Malawi Millennium Project, The Dochas Education Trust, Global Concerns Trust, K&C Thomson, Randi and Tim Eden, and Madeline Osborn, who have all made especially generous contributions.

CONTINUE TO DONATE HERE [This appeal technically closed on Sunday 28th February but we are keeping the above online donation link live to mid-March at the request of members and supporters.]

We have always been clear that this is an emergency appeal and hence getting the funds out there is our priority.

We are delighted to confirm that all £22,539 has already been spent or allocated for immediate support in Malawi:

-£4,700 for the purchase and urgent air freight of 300kg of Zeolite: a key component necessary for the repair of Oxygen Concentrators. This will arrive into Malawi in the coming days and be used by the volunteer engineers at Open O2 for their repair work across Malawi.

-£10,500 for the purchase and air freight of 40 high-quality pulse oximeters with adult, child and neonatal probes from Medical Aid International. Again, these are now en route to Malawi, having been packed and sent Monday night, and will be received by Open O2, for accountable distribution across Malawi, in the coming days.

-Up to £7,339 of pledged operational support for Open O2, to fund the necessary equipment, spare parts, accommodation, food and fuel for their volunteer engineers to fix potentially hundreds of Oxygen Concentrators across Malawi. Having identified the clear need in the north, their next trip is to Mzuzu. More and more broken units have been identified through this last week and the group will use funds to rehabilitate as many units as possible, and do all they can to support sustainable maintenance into the future.

To all those who have donated in the last week, please be assured that your funds are already working hard, with incredibly efficiently thanks to all the volunteerism, to support Malawi’s Covid response.

You learn more about Open O2’s excellent work, here.

We encourage everyone to continue to donate in the second week of the emergency appeal and to continue to share information about the campaign, including this recent piece in the Scotsman.

Photos: Open O2, hard at work in Malawi fixing Oxygen Concentrators.

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