Brett Gibbons talks to a Black Country businessman helping to bring hope to poverty ravaged areas of the world with his Mineseeker Foundation.

Businessman Mike Kendrick spends much of his working life touring poverty-stricken areas ravaged by war.

So he is well-qualified to state that billions of pounds in aid currently provided by Western countries is of little use whatsoever and should be stopped.

His alternative plan would see lives changed permanently and create sturdy economies to transform towns and villages which have never previously been able to support themselves.

Mr Kendrick, who worked on Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin airship project, has now dedicated his life to anti-land mine initiative The Mineseeker Foundation, which he founded a decade ago.

He travels to areas of conflict across the globe in his efforts to practically help victims of land mine blasts and it is his experience of life in these countries that has shaped his controversial view.

Mr Kendrick launched the Mineseeker Foundation in 2001, when he was chief executive of Virgin Airship and Balloon Company.

Its aim was to provide practical support for victims of the deadly weapons while helping to identify land mine locations using highly sophisticated radar equipment mounted on aerial platforms.

Originally, the ground penetrating radar was to be carried by airships.

Now the process has been refined and is attached to extremely mobile Robinson 44 helicopters and small planes. It is managed by sister company Mineseeker Operations and the system was successfully trialled in Croatia late last year.

“Once the land mines are cleared, vast tracts of land will become available for agricultural use but no-one will be able to grow crops and raise livestock unless the equipment and training is provided,” said Mr Kendrick.

“Endless fund-raising for a delivery of supplies will perhaps change lives for a day or a week – but by helping practically we can make this a lifetime and build a sustainable environment for future generations.

“Trade not aid is the key and any funds we raise should be spent with this long-term aim firmly in mind.”

Mr Kendrick, who lives near Wolverhampton, said: “The problem is that aid, when badly directed, kills people. In the last few decades the West has provided several trillion dollars in aid, yet the fact is the average African is now twice as poor as he was before all that started.

“I am not decrying these efforts whatsoever. However, providing food and clothing is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem.”

Controversially, he described British cash gifts to developing nations as a classic misuse of aid.

“Just before the Labour government was voted out of power Gordon Brown proudly announced that he was donating £100 million for mosquito nets to be sent to Africa – this actually killed a lot of people and put many thousands more into the poverty trap.

“Making and repairing mosquito nets is one of the few remaining cottage industries in Africa. By dumping millions of dollars worth of nets it simply shut all of those local businesses down, taking the people into a situation in which, unable to earn a living, they now need to rely on hand outs. You don’t have to be clever to work that one out.

“The money should have been put into local infrastructure – more sewing machines and material to construct nets.”

Nelson Mandela himself explained to Mr Kendrick the need for sustainable development when they first met at the former South African president’s house in Cape Town some years ago.

The Mineseeker Foundation is dedicated to using new technology to detect land mines and release the land that is subsequently free of land mines for agriculture, to provide food and work for the local community.

He said Mr Mandela explained that if we give a bag of grain to a landowner, he won’t plant it. He will eat it and then wait for the next bag to arrive. This aid, eventually, creates a society for people whose only remit is to wait to be handed out free food, Mr Kendrick added.

“The Mineseeker Foundation is currently looking at a coconut plantation in Mozambique. There are billions of coconuts on the area that can not be harvested but we are looking for investors to help fund a factory to process the coconut oil – this will create profit for the investors and sustain up to 50,000 people without a single penny of aid.

“We have established the name Aid Free Zones and the first project will be this coconut plantation. We are establishing the processing factory there and distribution points at which the local people will drop off the coconuts they have picked and get paid for them upon delivery.

“The product will be marketed and sold internationally under the Aid Free brand – even the villages will have a road sign saying ‘You are entering an Aid Free Zone’. It really is time to put any cash raised to practical use, teach these people to earn their own livings and provide them with the equipment to do so.

“The Mineseeker Foundation raises funds to provide new limbs for those injured in land mine blasts and we have recently embarked on a new project to help found schools in Mozambique.

“You have to be ruthless in terms of making sure funding is used on a project that will create sustainability and our foundation has to take some terribly difficult decisions.

“You can imagine how difficult it is to turn down individuals, in terrible difficulty, in favour of someone else. You feel as though you are playing God. However, such difficult and ruthless decisions need to be made.”

*More details at www.mineseeker.org