As well as helping with the vaccination effort Greg and Jill Vine have flown medical patients recovering from surgery. Photo: DAVE FORNEY/BBC.
Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), an international Christian organisation using aviation and technology to share the love of Jesus Christ, has embarked on flying among others relief supplies, aid workers to remote parts of Uganda where emergency help is needed amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Founded in 1945 by former World War II pilots, Mission Aviation Fellowship supports over 1,500 organizations to deliver support, hope, healing, spiritual care, and community development to thousands of communities around the world where flying is not a luxury but a lifeline.
Mr Greg Vine, a pilot for MAF, carrying passengers, food and aid from hundreds of relief organisations, such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), to remote areas in Uganda, told media reporters he has always wanted to be a pilot but “I needed something more than just that,” Mr Vine said.
“MAF marries the excitement of flying with being able to help people,” he told the BBC, in a report published this week.
His wife, Mrs Jill Vine, a communications officer, said working within coronavirus restrictions has been a big challenge but seeing NGOs working collaboratively has been inspiring.
Their charitable work goes beyond Uganda, to South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo et cetera.
Last month, President Yoweri Museveni imposed a 42-day nationwide lockdown to control the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen an escalation of infections.
Jill urged that when the lockdown was imposed, the charity’s flight schedule was forced to slow down and many of their relief partners were unable to get into the country.
However, when the vaccine roll-out started, MAF was called upon to fly NGOs to isolated communities.
“We’re getting those aid workers who are helping with the roll-out to where they need to go,” Mrs Vine told the BBC.
“We haven’t flown the vaccine itself, as Astra Zeneca is taken by road, but we have flown refrigerators to the Congo to help with vaccination there.
“MAF have an emergency team that meets once a week to talk about ways they can solve any problems, they are remarkable really, whenever there is a problem they will just find a way through.”
Mrs Vine has also been helping to get food to those in need within rural parts of Uganda.
“We devised a way that we could work within the guidelines, because we weren’t allowed to gather people to distribute food, to feed 5,000 people with more than a month’s worth of food to carry them through the crisis,” she said. “We’ve been able to feed 15,000 people to date.”
Mrs Vine urged that the lockdown has had a catastrophic impact on livelihoods. “You have a lot of people who have Aids who can’t access their [antiretroviral drugs] ARVs… and there are much bigger killers [than Covid], including hunger, typhoid, malaria and cholera.”
