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ffmotomex

May 10, 2004, 12:19 PM

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Has anyone taken donated equipment accross?

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Has anyone taken donated equipment across the border? I am a firefighter here in the states and have befriended a local fire department in Lagos de Moreno Jalisco. As you all probably know our old and outdated equipment here is light years better than what they currently have. My department would like to donate some used fire equipment to the Mexican firefighters. Is this a difficult process? How does one go about taking the donated goods across the border w/o being hasseled? Any insight will be appreciated. Thanks.
Tony

Rolly

May 10, 2004, 3:23 PM

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Re: [ffmotomex] Has anyone taken donated equipment accross?

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There are special procedures for bringing donate equipment into Mexico. You need to visit your area Mexican Consulate to find out the rules and get the necessary forms, etc.

You can find the address of your area consulate here: http://www.mexonline.com/consulate.htm

Rolly Pirate

E-visit me http://Rollybrook.com
On Facebook as Rolly Brook

sfmacaws

May 10, 2004, 4:00 PM

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Re: [ffmotomex] Has anyone taken donated equipment accross?

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non electronic and non mechanical stuff can be just taken across in your belongings. Friends of ours, also retired firefighter, took many sets of turnouts down to a fire station in Guatemala recently. They split the stuff up between several RVs and it didn't cause any questions. It was greatly appreciated. As a retired cop I took several kevlar vests down and donated them to local police. I might have been pushing the law a bit there as I didn't check to see if they were restricted. I have also taken some leather gear, handcuff cases, sam brown belts, etc but I don't take anything that can be construed as a weapon.

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán

jennifer rose

May 10, 2004, 4:37 PM

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Re: [ffmotomex] Has anyone taken donated equipment accross?

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See http://www.mexconnected.com/.../dtclothing2300.html

Carol Schmidt

May 10, 2004, 4:54 PM

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Re: [jennifer rose] Has anyone taken donated equipment accross?

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A medical group came to San Miguel recently, at the request of a local doctor, and all their medicines like vaccinations that they had planned to administer to people living in poor rural areas were stopped at the border. I think they'd followed all the requirements for getting donations across, these were not naive people, but the medicines were still stopped. Getting donations across the border is not easy.

Carol Schmidt

elcomputo

May 10, 2004, 7:44 PM

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Re: [Carol Schmidt] Has anyone taken donated equipment accross?

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I understand a group has been wanting to bring a pet spay and neuter clinic-on-wheels down here from Houston to provide free services, and Mexico will not allow them to enter the country.

You can't tell me Mexico does not have some strange priorities. I was shocked to hear a story about someone outside San Miguel who donated property to a local charity to set up an orphanage. The charity was forced to pay $20,000 pesos in taxes before a local government agency would allow them to take the property. And these were not taxes that had been owed by the previous owner. They were newly assessed taxes. (This information came to me directly from an officer of the charity.)

The government seems to do its best to discourage charity. This extends even to requiring volunteer workers to obtain work permits.

mepsi

May 11, 2004, 6:07 AM

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Re: [ffmotomex] Has anyone taken donated equipment accross?

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During the flooding which took place in, I believe, 1999, my daughter was working as a Social Service Doctor in the Sierra Norte in a village near Zacapoaxtla, Puebla. After receiving over 86 inches of rain in about a 7-8 day period the area was truly a disaster with homes, families and roads destroyed by landslides. Seeing the problems she contacted us to see if aid could be provided.

We began efforts to collect clothing, blankets and other supplies which we felt would be helpful. With the help of local people here in Albuquerque and from a church group in Wisconsin and transportation help from Yellow Freight we assembled about two tons of supplies.

On the other end permission letters were obtained from the Mayors in the local communities as well as from the Puebla Red Cross and the Governor of the State of Puebla.

We took the material to Cd. Juarez where we met my daughter and two farmers from the area who had a truck large enough to carry the supplies. The US Immigration personnel was, surprisingly, very helpful, giving us temporary permits for the Mexican drivers to come into the US to collect the goods and all went well until the truck returned to Mexico on Saturday morning. we were told we would still have to obtain permission from the Chihuahua Red Cross but they were closed until Monday. After I arranged for a hotel and meals for the drivers we waited until Monday and got the permission from the Red Cross and the load proceeded back to Puebla without further incident.

Fortunately, my daughter was smart enough to stay completely out of the distribution process as the hard feelings and recriminations began at this point; "why did she get two blankets and I only got one?" "his coat is newer than mine" and a million other similar whines. Nevertheless, I have to feel it was an extremely successful venture, albeit one I know one which I and my daughter have no wish to repeat

As an aside to the story, my daughter was in Quetzalan when the rains began in earnest and was stranded there for four days before she could walk out to Zacapoaxtla and back to her village and it was seven weeks before she could recover her car from quetzalan.

Monte

robertohowell

May 11, 2004, 6:57 AM

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