Volume 4   Issue  38                      January   2005

                 

Veteran Aid Worker Called in to Restore Sri Lankan Water Supplies
Aberdeen Press and Journal By Mike Boyle, January 13, 2005

A Veteran aid worker who has served in some of the world's most troubled countries has flown to Sri Lanka to help bring safe water supplies to victims of the tsunami. Mike Youde, 44, of Dunblane, has been given six weeks' leave from his job as a design consultant with Scottish Water Contracting to help in flood-hit Sri Lanka.

The Stirlingshire dad-of-two has flown to Colombo to work with Oxfam as a public health coordinator. He will lead teams of engineers and hygiene workers in an effort to get vital clean water supplies back up and running in the north and east of the country. Mr Youde already has two decades of experience of relief work under his belt, having helped victims of war, flood and earthquakes in Rwanda, East Timor, Cambodia, Vietnam and Mozambique. He has worked as a volunteer with various aid agencies, including Oxfam. Now he hopes to use his experience of working in the water industry to help restore desperately needed water supplies to people in remote Sri Lankan villages. He said: "I trained as a civil engineer and for the last three years have been doing design work on Scottish Water's mains rehabilitation programme.

"My aid work began when I did a stint from 1982 to 1984 with Voluntary Service Overseas in Malawi and since then I have worked all over the world helping mainly in the provision of safe water supplies.

"There is a massive job to do in the aftermath of the Asian earthquake as the infrastructure is so badly damaged.

"But people desperately need sources of clean and safe drinking water.

"In the weeks following the disaster, there has been so much disruption that there is a lot of potential for epidemics.

"I got a call on New Year's Eve from Oxfam asking if I could help in the water effort.

"Oxfam are well organized and they will already have considerable emergency equipment in place for getting water supplies up and running." Mr Youde will be leaving wife Maggie and sons Sam, 16, and Callum, 10, behind, but says they are used to his stints abroad.

He said: "I am glad to be able to use my skills to help the people of Sri Lanka.

"It's always difficult in these situations, as to some extent you have to switch off and just get on with the job. It can be very hard though - especially when children are affected." Mr Youde is the second member of Scottish Water staff to go to Sri Lanka.  Logistics expert Ian Heigh of Dundee went out just days after the disaster to join the international relief operation with the British Red Cross. Scottish Water recently donated thousands of surplus bottles of water, portable water containers and emergency field generators to help the aid effort in Asia.

Copyright 2005 Aberdeen Press and Journal
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