Five year old Aliyah, shuffled her way to the stage during a charity auction and reduced the audience to tears.

She handed over her princess money box (which totalled £225), and told the auctioneer she wanted this money, which she was saving for a trip to Mecca, to be used instead for the children of Gaza.

Schoolchildren made up shoeboxes of toys to be given one box each to children in Gaza; a group of local guys clubbed together to buy a used 7.5 tonne truck, garages offered to service the vehicle and businesses offered free spare parts and fuel.

Since 26th January, a huge community wide effort, over the course of just 18 days, managed to build a convoy of 9 trucks and vans, filled with toys, medical aid, clothing, blankets, nappies and construction equipment.

One of the trucks being solely dedicated to carrying a generator large enough to power a small school or hospital, again donated and worth £50,000.

In addition to this, funds raised totalled over £130,000 British Pounds (nearly $190,000).

This convoy of vehicles and cargo, labelled "with Love from Bolton", departed the small northern town in the UK and made its way to London to join a mass of other vehicles, which had been borne and tasked with the same love and devotion from other towns and cities in the UK.

This mile long Viva Palestina convoy totalling 110 vehicles, including 1 fire truck and 20 ambulances, left London on Valentines day with the message "A Valentine for Palestine"; carrying over £1M British pounds worth of Aid, from the people, to the people.

The 5,000 mile road trip has already taken the convoy through Europe and it is now winding its way across the coast of Northern Africa to its destination in early March - Gaza, Palestine.

Today (26 February) the convoy is halfway to its destination and the gruelling long hours of driving has been sweetened by the love, support and admiration - not to mention places to rest and meals -provided by the people of France, Spain, Morocco and Algeria along the route.

A local Algerian man, yesterday handed an envelope containing a letter and 100 Euros to a convoy driver and requested he hand this over to a poor family in Gaza..

The convoy also made history on 21st February as the governments of Morocco and Algeria both opened their borders for the first time in 15 years in order to let the convoy through into Algeria. Let's pray that this may be a small seed of hope planted firmly and deeply by the tyre tread of the convoy trucks, leading to some form of dialogue, understanding and improved relations between these two countries.

As this is the largest British convoy to cross North Africa since the 2nd world war you may ask why is this the first time you are hearing of this in an email? Sadly, the response by the British Government and other prominent UK politicians has been a muted one.

The British press have been on the whole shamefully silent by providing no coverage of the convoy along their journey in their news reports.

Regrettably, any issue, even a humanitarian one concerning the Palestinian people becomes a 'hot potato' which largely the media and governments are reluctant to have the courage to support and explains why the idea and need of this convoy took root and touched the hearts of so many ordinary people in the UK.

People who have been involved with Viva Palestina and other concerned individuals are now sending out this email message to their friend/colleagues all over the world in a bid to get the news of the convoy known worldwide.