NSRI of South Africa donation of 120 lifejackets to the NLRI of East Africa

On behalf of the National Lake Rescue Institute’s board of directors and volunteers I would like to thank the National Sea Rescue Institute of South Africa Chief Executive Officer, Ian Wienburg, his staff, volunteers and the many other people in South Africa who participated in the lifejacket drive on our behalf, for your kind donation to us. The NSRI support of our fledgling organisation is greatly appreciated and we are very proud to be associated with such a dedicated group of people. I would also like to extend our thanks to our friends at Shoprite South Africa for their very kind logistical support in terms of going the extra mile to have the lifejackets delivered to Uganda.

On Friday 20th May 2005, the 120 lifejackets were handed over by both Adv. Mohammed Cassimjee, Acting High Commissioner, South African High Commission to Uganda and Mr. Jack Akers, Managing Director, Shoprite, Uganda to Tim de Wet, Chief Executive, NLRI, on behalf of the National Sea Rescue Institute of South Africa (NSRI).

We are pleased to inform you that some of the lifejackets have already been put to work in support of one of our water safety development projects on the lake in partnership with the Government of Uganda and our Police Marine Command. The remaining lifejackets will be used by us as part of our grass roots preventive SAR training programmes that will be conducted in many fishing villages around the shores of our lakes.

A FINAL WORD:

We would like to thank Adv. Mohammed Cassimjee, who from the very beginning, helped us to register the National Lake Rescue Institute as an NGO and has been one of our greatest supporters over the past three and a half years. We wish him every success in his new post at Foreign Affairs in Pretoria.