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Western Union Handover Ceremony - Krabi, Thailand, September 22nd 2006We have receieved a total of USD 100,000.00 from Western Union so far which we have built 24 long tail boats, and purchased a second-hand trawler as previously reported. As soon as we placed the last order for 13 boats, we arranged to hold a handover ceremony at the boat builders site in Krabi with all 24 Thai fishermen who will receieve boats as well as representatives from Western Union. The date for the handover was set as Friday September 22nd. A coup d'etat had not featured in our planning, but one took place here in Thailand a few days before, which temporarily threatened to derail our plans, but to their credit Western Union were determined to go ahead with the event and insisted we proceed as planned. Sadly the main driver from Western Union Angela Heng Director of Comminications APAC was understandably prevented from joining us due to the uncertain security situation. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to her for supporting our cause in such a dedicated way. Pee Ded the boat builder was determined to finish all the boats in time for the ceremony as a matter of pride including the contruction of minature model replicas which he generously donated free to all the Western Union donors. When you consider that it normally takes 5 craftsmen one month to build a single Long Tail Boat, you can appreciate how much effort went into building 13 boats in six weeks. The word frantic does not even begin to describe the scene in Krabi leading up to the handover. Moist of the surrounding villages were involved in providing manpower. Friday 22nd dawned as a beautiful day, as we met 13 members of Western Unions APAC region exec team before transporting them to the site of the handover in Krabi. Ian K Marsh, senior vice president and managing director, Western Union Financial Services Asia Pacific welcomed everyone with a personal and heartfelt message of dedication and pride to all those involved in the project. We then moved to where the boats had been built and inidividually handed them over to each fisherman as they iun turn handed a minature replica boat as a thank you to the donor.
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