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Talk – M.A.F.- 25 June 2021

Mission Aviation Fellowship

It was a pleasure to welcome Nathan Taylor from MAF on 25 June. It had been a few years since we last had a presentation about the excellent humanitarian work carried out by Mission Aviation Fellowship and, since the airline has only recently celebrated its 75th Anniversary, the timing was appropriate.

Nathan introduced the work of MAF’s mission, using Aviation and technology to reach isolated people with practical help, spiritual hope and physical healing. MAF flies 130 aircraft, serving in 27 developing countries. Every 3-4 minutes a MAF flight is taking off or landing and each flight has the potential to transform just one or potentially thousands of lives.

In order to demonstrate this he gave two examples, one from Madagascar where MAF flies expatriate doctors to the Malagasy people, in what MAF terms Medical safaris. MAF has flown over 100 Medical safaris, most often these are a series of flights that provide safe efficient transport that is ten times quicker than land travel. 37,000 Malagasy people from 42 communities have received life changing medical provision thanks to this key partnership. MAF continues to serve these communities providing not just medical care partnering with expatriate health care providers, but also educational resources and agricultural tools in order to provide long term development to these isolated communities. A video and further information can be found at https://www.maf-uk.org/story/100-medical-safari-flights-in-madagascar

The second example Nathan gave was from Papua New Guinea. MAF uses High Frequency radios to coordinate with the communities it serves. Due to the geography and topography of PNG, a mountainous forest makes up the main land mass with many surrounding island communities separated by the pacific ocean. One of the individuals with whom MAF has a key relationship is Dr. Kevin Pondikou, a PNG resident who is the only qualified Doctor at the Ruminage hospital and overseer of 15 aid stations in the western province. Due to the poverty in PNG many of the doctors that qualify in the region move to other countries in pursuit of better wages and lifestyles. MAF’s radios and aircraft enable Dr. Kevin to cover much greater distances to provide adequate health care for those that need it whilst also alleviating the burden which he carries alone. A link to an article on the use of aviation and technology in PNG can be found at https://www.maf-uk.org/news/hf-radio-throws-a-lifeline-to-islanders-ahead-of-pngs-new-restrictions

In response to questions Nathan also briefly talked about MAF’s involvement in the Covax scheme working with the World Health organisation to deliver covid testing kits and vaccines in Kalimantan Indonesia, Madagascar and Lesotho. If anyone would like to learn more about MAF they can go to https://www.maf-uk.org/discover-the-world-with-maf to sign up to one year of mailing. They will be introduced to 5 of the programs MAF operates in providing key stories, news and country information. Also, if someone wishes to contact Nathan with further questions his email address is nathan.Taylor@maf-uk.org

Altogether, we were treated to a most interesting talk highlighting the wonderful work being carried out by this aviation charity.

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