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Supercop
Page 24
Page 25
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PC Roger Brooks has just returned from a two-week trip leading a convoy of humanitarian aid trucks to a children's hospice in Romania. Jennifer Ball reports.
Roger Brooks is a walking definition of selflessness. To sacrifice two weeks' holiday in order to drive a truck full of humanitarian aid across most of Europe for no financial reward takes a special kind of person. The reason he does it is simple and is straight from the heart: -It's the look on the children's faces when the trucks arrive that makes it all worthwhile. Our kids would say'It's just a bike', but to Romanian children a bike is something really special.
"Last year I took a snooker table out that my father had given me and they have almost worn it out. I get great satisfaction helping people who really need it — the children over there are innocent and can't do anything to help themselves.
Brooks has been a police officer since 1977. He currently works in the Met's North East Traffic unit at Chadwell Heath as a European traffic liaison officer.
In fact, it was 14 years ago while he was at work that he first became involved with humanitarian aid work to Romania. And despite the passage of time, his enthusiasm hasn't waned: "One of the doctors on the medical team that we worked with was looking for a volunteer with an 11GV licence to drive a truckload of humanitarian aid for a church group to Rom ania.The group had seen horrific pictures of the country after the revolution.I loved driving and decided to go on this trip and a number of others.I was then approached by a colleague in the German police force,who had been touched by what we were doing and wanted to start a police convoy under the International Police Association (IPA) banner and invited me to join."
While Brooks had the contacts to get the trucks the IPA needed to make the trip, there was one thing he didn't have a load of aid to transport. So he approached Christine Kirke, who was running the Aid for Children charity. Kirke had just opened a charity shop in aid of Romanian orphanages and she agreed to make up the load and finance the trip, so off they went to Romania in six artics driven by Brooks' police colleagues.
In 2000, Brooks was approached by Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner Sir John Stevens. who along with his wife, Lady Cynthia, had been involved with aid work in Romania and Africa. He was keen to launch a similar project on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service and the people of London and so Convoy 2000 was born. This brought together volunteers from the Metropolitan Police Service, Essex Police, Rotary International, the National Probation Service and Aid for Children. Since then the charity has run a large annual convoy to projects all over Romania, which are undertaken by volunteers from Convoy 2000. These include Sunshine House in Constanta the first hospice in Romania for terminally ill children with cancer and HIV.
Brooks says it takes dedication,many hours of work and great commitment to ensure the success of the trip. Earlier this year, he led a team of 32 people with 13 artics and three support vehicles on a 13-day expedition from AMG North Weald near the M25 motorway to Constanta. On the way to Sunshine House the team stopped at nine other Convoy 2000 project sites to deliver aid right across Romania from near the western border with Hungary to the eastern coast on the Black Sea. More than 100 volunteers from the UK flew out behind the convoy to use and distribute the aid the convoy carried.
Brooks spent weeks liaising with police colleagues across Europe before the trip, ensuring that appropriate customs documentation was in place and that the convoy had places to stay enroute with enough spaces to park all the trucks Donations The charity relies heavily on donations to fund the trip. This year Renault Trucks and TIP provided the tractor units and trailers for the trip, while BP donated the £16,000 worth of fuel needed for the journey: "The trip is only as good as its preparation and without the help of all our sponsors it would not be possible," adds Brooks.
Although the convoy is for a charitable purpose, it is not exempt from the myriad rules and regulations that cover road transport on the Continent, as Brooks explains: All our trucks are double-manned and we take regular breaks. I had to ensure that we stuck to European weight restrictions when loading the trucks, so we divided the heavy and light items ranging from building materials to medical supplies between the different vehicles. This year we also had to ensure that all the trucks were fitted with GO-Boxes to comply with the Austrian motorway charging scheme.This cost €250 per truck. All the drivers worked very hard for the two weeks of our trip and also in the weeks leading up to departure, with loading and preparing the vehicles.
Convoy 2000 has been running for five years now, but with the retirement of Sir John Stevens next year it is too early to say whether the project will continue: "We don't know what will happen as Sir John Stevens has been the leader of the project: it is something he is passionate about, having been out to Romania to see the conditions and the changes we have made there.
"We still want to build a new high pitch roof on Sunshine House to provide accommodation for 16 additional children and a small warehouse for them to store their supplies.The general situation in Romania is improving, but many people there endure harsh poverty and a poor existence in comparison to us and there is still a lot more work to be done."•