A very surprising Red Nose Day feature last week. Malaria. 1M dead every year. Only in Africa now. And I never realised but mainly children under 5 years old.

1M dead. But Red Nose Day has raised 500M over 10 years. Early in the show it raised £13M. Then £57M.

DFID has 2 budgets of £1.2B. And 2 offices.

KCC spends £110M in bank charges. Bank charges! Money paid for money in and out. From our council tax. And the Treasury. £110M!

The Red Cross is already speaking with Tesco on how they can support aid delivery.

Malaria nets prevent any deaths. Proven. 1M deaths down to zero.

Maybe with a few cheap droplet drugs too.

1M malaria nets. £5 each? It’s only netting. £5M. Double it. Treble it. Even call it £20M.

Where is the money at DFID going? £20M on nets and some cargo boxes and shipping fees would end malaria within months.

The money is there. Where is it going?

I know. Civil service research. Diversity proposals. Salaries. Powerpoint presentations.

KCC is a £2B organisation. With 40,000 employees.

Should not an one-off malaria charge of £2 per employee per week (I think that makes £5M) be reclaimed from DFID and the Bank Charges. £110M. And nets bought and shipped from Dover? 1M nets with a few spares would be about 3 blue cargo boxes worth. Maybe a blue box or two for malaria drugs.

Too small a load for most ships.

1M deaths. The population of Kent. For £5M. Or £20M whichever you prefer. And 3 blue boxes of netting. A 3 day sailing time to West Africa or South Africa. 3 weeks of internal flights or trucking to anywhere and everywhere in Africa.

Probably just sending the money to a Red Cross office. The local British Ambassador could sign for it too.

£5M for nets. 1M deaths.

Something's wrong somewhere isn't it?

Wow! Thank you to Glen at Wavecrest Shipping, Gravesend (www.wavecrest.co.uk) who are interested in helping ship books and uniforms to Mali, Cameroon and Thailand.

Also we need to chat to a couple of book companies who have expressed an interest in providing books to the Surin Schools: more details once we've had a chat.

Much appreciated!

A terrific fundraising effort from the teachers and kids at Caldecott and next week the Surin Charity is collecting a cheque for £1,500 from just one evening of fundraising, towards the school in Cameroon.

Many thanks to Sam Scott and as always Anita Trotter!