Delivering Relief Supplies “Hand to Hand” During Lockdown

Our names are Pilar and Virginia. For fifteen and nine years, respectively, we have worked the relief organisation founded by Iberia employees. Neither one of us ever imagined how gratifying it would be to to help those in need. Every shipment goes with a lot of emotion, and even more so in these times of pandemic.

I’m Pilar, and if it’s OK, I’ll speak first, and tell the story from the beginning. Before becoming an active volunteer at the Iberia NGO known as Mano a Mano [“Hand to Hand”], I was acquainted with it as a cabin attendant with the airline, and on long-haul journeys I always carried some item in my suitcase that could be of use to needy people in the countries to which we flew. I often took the opportunity to visit projects and learn first-hand about people’s needs. When I retired I knew that Mano a Mano would be my life..

Initially we were a family NGO, a group of friends that evolved into something bigger. In all these years was have carried tonnes of aid after natural disasters, and also helped build schools and drinking water treatment plants in developing countries. We also brought children with rare diseases to Spain for surgery.

But last March everything changed. The world stopped. But not us.

The day the state of alarm and the lockdown were declared, we were preparing a shipment that we had to stop, and we though that maybe it would be useful to our hospitals, so we contacted the Gregorio Marañón hospital in Madrid. It still gives me goosebumps when I remember that they said they would be very grateful for the supplies. So we brought them 2,000 hospital barrier gowns --the best they’d ever seen, they told us-- and another 5,000 regular hospital gowns. But they still needed more –it brings tears to my eyes to remember it. 

Much of the aid was carried by our volunteers, most of them retired like us, and thus in a high-risk group, but that was the last thing on our minds --we just wanted to help in any way we could.

Meanwhile,  an organisation call the Madrid Cargo Forum contacted us and  and we got organised to help raise money on their behalf to buy medical supplies from China, the main source.

We were all locked down, but we got in touch by Zoom several times a day. I was in Valencia with my 90-year-old mother, a real survivor! Another member of the “virtual family” one day connected himself from the hospital, waiting for his child's birth.

We each had a specific job to do. It was all beautifully coordinated. Somebody ordered the material, another dealt with all the shipping and customs documents, another handled distribution. Every day at 19:00 h I spoke to the Spanish Caritas office to find out which healthcare facilities had the greatest need for our help.

The fact is that we managed to obtain 12,000 pairs of gloves, 16,000 face masks, 1,000 gowns, 600 face screens, and 400 distance thermometers, which we delivered to facilities all over Spain. We also helped to fund free meals. We were in constant touch with the Remar charity to get meals to the people having the worst time.

Virginia was also an Iberia cabin attendant when she learned about Mano a Mano, and when she retired she decided to find “a productive and altruistic way to spend here time”.

That’s right, and I’ve spent seven years working with Mano a Mano. I loved my job flying, but the satisfaction of helping the people who need it most is simply incomparable.

And like Pilar says, we had to reinvent our NGO during the pandemic in order to carry on, to keep helping.

One of our most successful fundraising events were our “solidarity street markets,” but the restrictions made them more difficult to manage. Still, with social distancing in the open air, wearing masks, with all products safely wrapped, we did OK. We sold surplus Iberia crockery, duvets and toilet kits, unclaimed lost objects from the RENFE railroad, imitation jewellery, etc.

It was cold when we held the street market in December, though it was a few days before Spain was hit by the monumental Filomena snowstorm, but we were very happy with the result. Our profits, together with the anonymous donations made online, netted us enough to meet our objective for the year --to buy a communal biological oven to help feed a town in the Moroccan province of Larache.

Our mission never ends, so we’d be delighted to hear from you if you’d like to help. Just visit our website, ongmanoamano.com to get to know us a little better.

We thank you very much and look forward to hearing from you!