A charitable activist living in Highland Perthshire has a simple wish for 2022: that hungry children in Africa will receive a metal spoon to eat with.
Kind granny Lilian Mackenzie (70) from Tummel Bridge has spent many years affecting valuable change through her association with Dundee humanitarian charity, Bananabox Trust, where she is a valued trustee.
Her previous appeals, assisted by husband Stewart, were made under the banner of Heartland to Malawi, their effort to galvanised the people of Highland Perthshire.
They have sought money to dig and repair village boreholes and to get backpacks for school books.
Some years ago she and Stewart asked for sportswear to be recycled for underprivileged sports teams.
Live Active Leisure gear and Breadalbane Strathtay youth football strips have had a new life thousands of miles away.
On top of that, Lilian has spent years arranging for Perthshire people to hand over packets of pants so that girls can get underwear in places where female education is low and new clean clothing impossible to buy.
She last made a delivery trip to Africa in 2019.
Recently her mind has been on making an appeal for donations of soup and desert spoons.
Many hundreds of spoons - they need to be metal as plastic ones break and replacements don’t get handed out - have already left in Bananabox Trust shipping containers which Lilian has helped to fill with essential supplies.
But she reckons around 100,000 spoons are needed.
“You have to imagine the scene,” she told the PA. “Children in Ekwendeni in North Malawi are on an aid programme where they are offered free porridge.
“But bowls are rare, sometimes they gather rubbish and if they are lucky enough to find an empty crisp packet, they re-use that as a handy receptacle instead of a bowl.
“Then they eat the porridge from the used crisp packet with fingers - the same unwashed hands they do everything with.
“It’s no good sending out plastic spoons as if they break, they don’t get another one.
“We want to provide every child with a sturdy metal spoon that they can keep on using. It is a prized possession in these hungry communities we are helping in Northern Malawi.”
Lilian has gathered cutlery donations from Aberfeldy Time Bank and from friends in Burrelton.
She told the PA spoons donated by her Perthshire supporters are on their way, right now.
“A Bananabox Trust container is dockside in South Africa just now.
“My aim is to keep the spoons coming,” said Lilian. “Children from the Hope Foundation School will be delighted to receive one of your spoons.”
If you wish to help, contact her by email, lilianmack@btinternet.com
