A bit about what the organisation is...
Aid Convoy is a voluntary charitable organisation with no political or religious affiliation. We operate on a not-for-profit basis, and our workers receive neither wages nor personal expenses.

All the funds we raise are spent directly on the transportation of our volunteers and aid, and sometimes on creating short-term jobs in our target countries, to help get people back into work and start their own projects, while working on ours; such as building toilets at a school, or a well for a village. Occasionally we will also purchase extraordinary items we consider essential for the projects we are helping, once we are sure they cannot be sourced as a free donation.

We will always run aid-delivery "convoys" because of the tremendous effect they have on morale. However, we are increasingly spending time and money on more long-term "developmental" projects, working with the friends we have met on convoy. Sticking with a limited number of countries and projects helps us overcome issues of corruption and bureaucracy, by learning about the pitfalls of each case.

Read on to find out how we began, or jump straight to our work in Albania, Ukraine or the former Yugoslavia.

Our history
We formed in 1999 in response to the crisis in the former Yugoslavia. The humanitarian work grew from people in our local community having an understanding that we were in a very luxurious position; we were able to help other people in need.

The early story is in a page about Albania, Macedonia, and Kosova. This describes our steep but exciting learning curve during the Kosova conflict. If you're curious, this page also explains why we tend to use "Kosova" rather than the commonly seen "Kosovo" spelling.

The next major milestone in our projects is detailed in a page about Ukraine, the country where the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened in 1986, and to where we were introduced by colleagues who had worked with us in Yugoslavia.

Recently we became the first group to benefit from a fantastic new charity fund-raising concept, Canvas. You can find out more about this art raffle concept at the Canvas website which also features an update from after the event, with what people had to say about it.

We continue working in Ukraine, and are developing new support projects in Albania. We also have links (and offer support) to groups working at orphanages in Romania, and to other projects in Eastern Europe and Iraq. During 2000 and 2001 we also advised on a project in Burkina Faso, in western Africa. And recently, a Land Rover with one of our volunteers has even ventured into the Sahara! For the future, with your help, we stand ready to assist with humanitarian needs and rebuilding, wherever we are most effective.

For the very latest news, please see our printed newsletters, which you can download as Adobe PDF (Acrobat) files from the front page of this site.