Tragic Linda Norgrove’s latest legacy of love

A CHARITY set up in memory of a Scots aid worker who was kidnapped and killed in Afghanistan is funding 21 young students in law and two in medicine in the war-torn country.

Linda Norgrove died when rescue mission went wrong. Picture: Hemedia

Since it was set up in 2010, the Linda Norgrove Foundation has distributed more than £500,000 to help women and children affected by the Afghan conflict.

The charity was established after Ms Norgrove, from Uig in the Western Isles, was kidnapped and died in a failed rescue attempt.

Her parents, John and Lorna, started the charity as a way of creating something positive from the tragedy and in their latest newsletter they set out where the funding has gone.

They reveal how almost £6,000 is being spent on sponsoring 14 female students to study law, while another two girls are being sponsored to become doctors.

A total of £9,000 is being spent to pay the salaries of three midwives.

And ten women are studying ten-month courses in English, communications and computing, at a cost of £9,400.

Mr and Mrs Norgrove said: “Our focus as a charity isn’t in the UK, it’s in the results achieved in Afghanistan.”

In the newsletter, a project manager for the foundation in Kabul describes what it is like to grow up as a woman in the country, while students who are being sponsored explain the benefits of a scholarship.

The couple said: “Fundraising is difficult for us living in the Western Isles – a small and generous, but not an affluent, society.”

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In 2013, running costs in the UK totalled less than £4,000, meaning £239,000 went to fund various projects.

They added: “We took a decision early on not to engage in fundraising that involved high costs but rather focus on keeping overheads to a bare minimum so that we would appeal to discriminating donors who could be secure in the knowledge that their money would get to the people who need it.”

They also made an impassioned plea to possible donors, adding: “Maybe cutting our costs isn’t such a clever strategy as it reduces our ability to support fundraising efforts. Which makes it all the more important that, if you know someone who is making a will and is likely to pay inheritance tax, you might advise them of the fantastic tax break offered by HMRC by which, subject to certain conditions, the government will effectively quadruple money left to charity.”

So far the foundation has funded around 50 grassroots projects, including orphanages that care for disadvantaged disabled children, homes for widows, education for girls and emergency medical help for severely abused women.

Mr Norgrove said: “Linda passionately believed that empowering women was fundamental to changing the future of Afghanistan for the better.”

Linda Norgrove worked for Development Alternatives Inc and oversaw an aid project to create jobs and strengthen local leadership and economies in vulnerable areas.

The 36-year-old was kidnapped and later killed by a US grenade in October 2010 when special forces attempted a rescue at the compound where she was being held.

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