During the international forum at headquarters this week, we’re asking some representatives from Red Cross Red Crescent Societies to tell us their take-aways from the gathering.

The first is an audio clip from Respeito Chirrenze, the volunteer management coordinator at the Mozambique Red Cross in Africa, which is a younger national society. They started in 1981. Their work focuses primarily on disasters — especially cyclones, floods and droughts — and health issues such as HIV/AIDS.

>> AUDIO:  Respeito Chirrenze

The second is from Ruud Tombrick, Director of Communications and Development for the Netherlands Red Cross. Ruud recently spent 6 months helping us here at the American Red Cross so it’s great to see him again.  

Ruud Tombrock
Netherlands Red Cross
Tuesday, April 29, 6:25pm
It’s good to be back in Washington – I spent six months here this fall and winter and this is such a fantastic city! I think the most interesting part of today is the sharing of strengths and what we could offer to our other national societies. We were in small groups and we could easily make the connections, hooking up people who had resources with people who had those needs. It happened right in front of our eyes time after time today.

We also learned a lot about the plans for our Secretariat leadership in Geneva and the zones they are dividing the globe into. The plans are grand and bold, and I feel we need to really think through some of the details of these plans and define concrete objectives.

The third is from Tony Mwangi of Kenya Red Cross:

It’s been great interacting with different people from other national societies who have their own level of skill and experience. Everyone brings their own level of understanding about how communications should be delivered. It is that interaction between the different experiences that guides us on where we are going within communications as a movement. But at the same time we also need to understand we are one, a unit, and communication has to be based on our ideals, values and principles, which is eventually meant to ensure that the various publics we serve get the message that we truly want to be delivered.

Filed under: International