LOCAL BOBBY TO LEAD ANOTHER CONVOY TO ROMANIA

The Breaza Orphanage on which the team will be working

PC Dave O'Grady who pounds the beat in the North of Chiswick will be missing for a week again this year.

For the third year running he will be leading a team to work at orphanages in Romania for Convoy 2000. This year he had a team of 21 people, 13 of whom are police officers. On is the Ealing Borough Commander, Peter Goulding, but for the duration of the trip it will be PC O'Grady who will be the boss.

The team will be double glazing an orphanage in Breaza, central Romania, a place where the winter temperature gets down to minus 20 degrees. An Ealing company, Peerless Windows have donated the windows and are also sending 4 of their fitters to ensure the job gets done properly. All of the volunteers do so in their own time and at their own expense.

At the same time, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens, who is a Director of Convoy 2002 will be joining forces with the Archbishop of Constanta to officially open Romania’s first ever purpose-built care unit for terminally ill children, when he visits the country this month (May).

‘Sunshine House’ will be opened on Sunday 19 May 2002 as part of a major programme of care for all terminal illnesses, particularly AIDS infected children, in the Constanta region and will house up to 22 children.

Commissioner Sir John Stevens described the children who will be staying at Sunshine House as ‘the bravest of the brave’.

He said: "This new facility is state of the art and will provide much needed care for children whose young lives are being tragically cut short. It gives me great personal pleasure to be associated with ‘Sunshine House’ which will provide palliative care in the last few weeks of these children’s precious lives, allowing them to die with love and dignity."

Sunshine House will also provide much needed dental care for over 900 HIV infected children who would otherwise be unlikely to receive treatment.

The building was supplied by the Romanian authorities to the organisation ‘Aid-For-Children’ which is part of Convoy 2000.

This is just one undertaking benefiting from Convoy 2000 which is helping the Romanian people to help themselves with building projects to alleviate the suffering of the sick and benefit the needy.

In total 32 personnel with 13 HGV’s and three support vehicles leave on May 13 and travel through Europe, arriving in Romania on 17 May 2002, to join with 146 members on the building projects. As in previous year’s the Commissioner’s wife, Lady Cynthia Stevens will again be driving one of the support vehicles.