This Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up is courtesy of Scott Waggoner, from Cross Blog: Award-winning Red Cross news and views from Oregon and beyond

Welcome to the Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It’s a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work…

SYRIA: Violence in Syria continues with one of the latest casualties being the secretary-general of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Dr. Abd-al-Razzaq Jbeiro. Dr. Jbeiro was shot in a vehicle clearly marked with the red crescent emblem after attending meetings at Syrian Arab Red Crescent headquarters in Damascus. The Syrian Arab Red Crescent, IFRC, and ICRC are renewing calls for an end to violence, while volunteers continue to administer life-saving first aid to the injured.

IVORY COAST: Following the second round of presidential elections in late 2010 where both candidates claimed victory, tension and violence grew into a full-fledged armed conflict in Ivory Coast. In the chaos, hundreds of children lost contact with their families. The ICRC and the Liberian Red Cross have registered around 600 children separated from their parents and are working to bring the children back their families.

PHILIPPINES: As tens of thousands of survivors in Mindanao, Philippines enter their second month of uncertainty, the Red Cross is announcing plans to drastically increase its support to communities affected by December’s Typhoon Washi. The revised operation will see the Red Cross provide 2,000 families with cash or other livelihoods support as well as reaching 15,000 families – an estimated 75,000 people – with food, water storage containers and hygiene kits. In all, the Red Cross now intends to reach 100,000 people through these various interventions.

SUDAN: For Darfur’s pastoral communities, livestock is essential for their sustenance and constitutes the backbone of the local economy. The lack of rain, desertification and prevailing insecurity has stressed herding communities into animal overcrowding at the few options remaining, leading to increased risk of disease. The ICRC has been extending its support by training animal health workers and through large-scale vaccination campaigns in remote areas of Darfur, and in response herders are reporting a dramatic decrease in the number of animals they are losing to disease.

GLOSSARY:

ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

This Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up is courtesy of Scott Waggoner, from Cross Blog: Award-winning Red Cross news and views from Oregon and beyond

Welcome to the Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It’s a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work…

ITALY: 250 Italian Red Cross staff and volunteers are taking part in the rescue and relief operation at the site of capsized liner Costa Concordia. The cruise ship hit rocks off Italy’s west coast on Friday night, killing at least 12 people and injuring 70. Volunteers have supplied more than 800 people with clothes, shoes, hygiene kits, transport to nearby hospitals, medicine and other materials.

NIGERIA: The ICRC is providing support for the Nigerian Red Cross to treat those injured in a recent wave of protests. A nationwide strike was called for January 9th by labor organizations to protest the withdrawal of fuel subsidies. Since the strike began, Nigerian Red Cross volunteers have provided first aid all over the country to more than 600 injured persons.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO: Heavy fighting has been raging in Shabunda territory of South Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since January 5th, 27 injured people, including eight children, have been evacuated to various hospitals in Bukavu with support from the ICRC. The ICRC is continuing to supply medical supplies and is pressing the authorities and weapon bearers to respect and protect civilians.

SOMALIA: The ICRC has decided to temporarily suspend distribution of food and seed relief intended for 1.1 million people in urgent need after having been blocked by local authorities in parts of central and southern Somalia. Since a drought started in late 2010 the ICRC has distributed food rations to more than a million people and has provided agricultural support for over 100,000 farmers.

CHILE: On the first day of the new year hundreds in Chile were evacuated from dozens of forest fires that burned at least 57,000 acres. The Chilean Red Cross is currently assisting more that 50 families in shelters located in the communes of Quillon and Chillan.

GLOSSARY:

ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Hurricane Cookies [Instructables]

O Positive (or not) [Burdens Do a Body Good]

First Aid Kit Releases new music video [PerezHilton]*

Google Flu Trends is a powerful early warning system for emergency departments [Science Daily]

Social Media Tracks Disease Spread [Scientific American]

2 years ago today, Haiti was struck by an earthquake. Our work there has made significant progress and there’s still much to do. We just want to take a moment today to think of all those who were affected and to thank all of you who came together so beautifully to help.

* We just get a kick out of the name of this band.

This Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up is courtesy of Scott Waggoner, from Cross Blog: Award-winning Red Cross news and views from Oregon and beyond

Welcome to the Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It’s a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work…

INDIA: On the morning of December 30th, Cyclone Thane battered India’s south-east coast causing thousands to flee from their homes. In its wake, the cyclone left an immense trail of destruction. Early action by volunteers of the Indian Red Cross Society deployed before the disaster was able to reduce the impact of the severe storm. Working closely with the authorities, the Red Cross helped to evacuate people from low-lying coastal areas and sent out warnings through its district branches.

SOUTH SUDAN: Violence in Pibor County, Jonglei State, has left thousands of people displaced and many wounded. The ICRC is working with the South Sudan Red Cross (SSRC) to help health facilities cope with an influx of casualties. ICRC teams based at regional Training hospitals are treating hundreds of people, distributing medical supplies, and helping to reunite families separated by fighting.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Between December 30th, 2011, and January 6th, 2012, the ICRC visited 38 military personnel arrested in connection with disturbances in Guinea-Bissau on 26 December. The visits took place in Mansoa military prison and at Armura air base in Bissau, and essential relief supplies were provided for the detainees.

MAURITANIA: A team from the IFRC has been visiting villages to assess food security problems in Mauritania. A lack of rainfall and poor access to water sources has had a major impact on agricultural production. The Mauritanian Red Crescent, with partners from a number of National Societies, are running programs to help and encourage gardening activities, growing food that is less dependent on abundant rains.

GLOSSARY:

ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Today’s post comes to us from New York’s “Changing Lives: The Story Book” Blog

Volunteers come from many walks of life. For some, it is a chance to give back to their communities. For Francklin Morose, a volunteer with the American Red Cross on Long Island, it’s much deeper than that— as his journey began with the world literally crumbling at his feet.

Morose was at his accounting job in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 12, 2010—the day of the worst earthquake in the island nation’s history.

It began with a simple shake he recalled. He and his colleagues thought a big truck had driven by.
“Then,” he said, “everything started to fall down—the walls, the ceiling.”

With all the entrances blocked, Morose and his colleagues were forced to jump to the ground from a second story bathroom window. That’s when they realized an earthquake had struck.

“The whole block was dark; everything had changed,” Morose said.

He described buildings destroyed; communications disrupted; trees down; and people who were bloodied and bruised running through the streets. He made his way home and found it destroyed.

That night, Morose located his family in a park, among hundreds of others that had lost their homes.

“There was no food, drink, nothing,” he said.

The mental toll was equally as heavy. Morose became concerned about Alexa, his six-year-old daughter. She had been at school during the quake. Although physically unscathed, she had been traumatized by the experience and screamed at every noise.

A few days later, Morose heard that the United States was allowing Haitian-American citizens who had been affected by the quake to evacuate. Because Alexa had been born in Florida, she was eligible to travel. Because she was underage, Morose was permitted to accompany her. Alexa’s mother, concerned about leaving her job, stayed behind in Haiti.

Father and daughter took a military transport plane to Orlando, Fl. At the airport, American Red Cross relief workers gave them food, toys and contact information for the Red Cross on Long Island as they would be traveling to Baldwin, N.Y., the next day; Morose planned to stay with a cousin who lived there.

Shortly after arriving on Long Island, Morose visited the Red Cross office in Mineola, and was given a stipend for winter clothing, along with information about how to apply for Social Security, food stamps and more.

“This was exactly what I needed to start,” he said.

“Red Cross gave me their friendship,” he added. “When I came to my cousin’s house, I didn’t know anyone. The Red Cross called to make sure we were okay. That’s when I decided to volunteer.”

Morose is on call two days a week as a Disaster Action Team volunteer who responds to fires and other local emergencies, helping those in need with the same kind of immediate humanitarian relief he and Alexa received from the Red Cross.

In the two years since he and Alexa arrived in the United States, they have moved from his cousin’s house to Bellerose. Morose now works as a childcare worker for children with disabilities.

He says Alexa, who attends first grade at a Queens public school, is doing better. But because she does not want to return to Haiti, they will stay in the country. Morose, who has a bachelor’s degree in business administration he earned in Haiti, plans to go to school here for a degree in finance.

Meanwhile, he says he volunteers for the American Red Cross “to help other people as they helped me.”

He added, “I would like to thank everyone who contributes to make the Red Cross what it is. Without the Red Cross, we would have been lost.”

For the past 20 years, the Greater NY Red Cross has been providing Holocaust tracing services through The American Red Cross Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center, a national clearinghouse for persons seeking the fates of loved ones missing since the Holocaust and its aftermath.

I’ve been involved with the program at the Greater New York Chapter (now the Greater New York Region) since October 2007 and have had the honor to hear people’s stories and help with their journey to find answers about their family.

This program aims to reconnect survivors separated by the Holocaust during World War II, but often it assists U.S. residents, searching for themselves or for family members, in finding information regarding proof of internment, forced/slave labor, or evacuation.

To locate information, we use the worldwide network of more than 185 Red Cross and Red Crescent societies including the Magen David Adom in Israel. We also consult museums, archives and international organizations to further facilitate tracing requests.

As the years pass, sadly, there are fewer survivors to reconnect. Often, the end result of a search is proof of what a survivor endured. This result, though less than what was hoped for, is often invaluable to the person initiating the search.

Six years ago Ruth Schloss opened a case to see if she could learn the fate of her parents. She’d last seen them 70 years earlier, frail and starving, at Camp de Gurs, a work/holding camp in southwestern France, when she was fourteen. Through that search, Ruth learned that her parents died at Auschwitz. Although this was sad news, it provided Ruth with the closure she needed. “I can’t thank the Red Cross enough,” Ruth told my predecessor.

Now, nearly 67 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, fewer and fewer survivors are able to initiate cases themselves. Despite this reality, my team continues to receive new inquiries. The difference is that today, many of these new cases are initiated by the children, and sometimes the grandchildren, of Holocaust survivors.

Most are searching on behalf of elderly parents whose memories or mental states are in decline. That was the situation when Anna Zvi, a Queens, resident and mother of two, initiated a tracing case through the Greater NY Red Cross for her elderly mother, Holocaust survivor Mania Kichell.

Mania’s condition was not the only factor behind Anna’s inquiry. Anna’s daughter Simone helped convince her mother to begin the search; Simone had always thirsted to know more about her grandmother’s Holocaust experiences, but Mania chose not to speak about them.

Zvi and her family were thrilled to receive public records obtained by the Polish Red Cross confirming her mother’s residence in the Lodz Ghetto and liberation from Bergen-Belsen, as well as her mother’s Polish birth certificate.

“The Red Cross relates to people with a lot of heart,” said Zvi. “I’m blessed to have had their help. Having this information means so much to me and to my children.”

This summer the Greater NY Red Cross ran an article about Zvi’s tracing story on our website; it was picked up in September by the Queens Gazette. I’m happy to report that as a result of the Gazette article, a number of new tracing cases have been initiated with my team. Most of these were initiated by individuals who were unaware of our tracing services until reading the article.

Sometimes, though a stroke of luck, a tracing search yields another kind of favorable outcome: Family members are united with relatives by surprise. After Harriet D., the daughter of a survivor, initiated a tracing inquiry on an uncle earlier this year, we concurrently received a tracing request from the Magen David Adom in Israel searching for information on both Harriet’s mother and another uncle. As a result, Harriet was able to connect with a cousin in Israel she didn’t know existed, and relatives in both the U.S. and Israel have reestablished contact.

In my mind, our Holocaust Tracing program is not only an opportunity to find answers, locate lost relatives and potentially bring closure to survivors and their families; it’s a remarkable opportunity to preserve their voices and stories.

As Anna Zvi so eloquently pointed out to me: “My mother is unable to impart this information in her own voice, that’s why I get so emotional when I receive a new piece of documentation. It’s as if someone was speaking for my mother and saying, ‘Yes, she endured this; Yes, we know.’”

This Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up is courtesy of Scott Waggoner, from Cross Blog: Award-winning Red Cross news and views from Oregon and beyond

Welcome to the Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It’s a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work…

SOMALIA: In response to ongoing armed clashes in the Middle Juba region of southern Somalia, the ICRC has sent urgently needed emergency medical supplies over the past few days to various medical facilities on both sides of the front line in Kismayo, Afmadow and Dhobley. In cooperation with local treatment facilities, the ICRC will continue to closely assess surgical and other medical needs in the coming days and weeks.

SYRIA: The situation in Syria has continued to deteriorate, especially in the past week, and violence is taking a heavy toll, leaving hundreds of people dead or wounded. Since June of this year, when the ICRC was granted greater access to the areas of unrest, the organization has been providing medical aid, food aid, and other basic items for the people affected. Over the past eight months the ICRC and Syrian Arab Red Crescent have distributed at least 14,000 family sized one month food parcels, 30,000 school kits, 1,400 hygiene kits, medical supplies, hospital support, drought relief, and legal workshops concerning international humanitarian and human rights laws.

PHILLIPINES: An outbreak of the deadly bacteria Leptospirosis has highlighted the dramatic and ongoing needs of the tens of thousands of people in northern Mindanao, the most prominent island in the southern Phillipines, who were displaced and affected by Typhoon Washi. The Philippine Red Cross has deployed health staff and mobilized additional volunteers and resources in an effort to help limit the outbreak.

AFGHANISTAN: At the ICRC’s Orthopedic Center in Kabul, playing wheelchair basketball is a welcome diversion for both patients and staff. The patients had been playing basketball together for some time, but it was more like ‘buzkashi’ – the ferocious no-holds-barred local equivalent of polo. Inspired by a training course they received in May of 2010 by West Linn-native wheelchair basketball player and coach Jess Markt, the players have practiced together every week since then.

GLOSSARY:

ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

This Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up is courtesy of Scott Waggoner, from Cross Blog: Award-winning Red Cross news and views from Oregon and beyond

Welcome to the Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It’s a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work…

PHILIPPINES: Relief continues to pour in for Typhoon Washi, that killed well over 1,000 people and devastated the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Teams of Red Cross volunteers are supporting doctors in treating survivors that received wounds nearly a week ago. In addition to typical first aid, the Red Cross is using psychological first aid for the extensive suffering many survivors are facing. The IFRC, ICRC, and Philippine Red Cross continue to address relief needs by sending thousands of relief kits, addressing water shortages, and supporting damaged health care facilities.

LIBYA: Libyan Red Crescent volunteers based in the eastern city of Benghazi are continuing to address a large number of displaced individuals from the conflicts earlier this year. Over the last ten months, 200 volunteers ran a camp that sheltered 75,000 people. The camp remains full as of early December, and is now seeing refugees escaping the violence in Syria.

MALI/NIGER: With support from the ICRC, a campaign to vaccinate 4.5 million animals has just been launched in the northern parts of Mali and Niger. The animals will be treated against parasites and immunized against diseases such as sheep and goat plague, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, camel pasteurellosis, and sheep and goat pox. These vaccinations will provide food security in this region with a highly sensitive economy, erratic climate conditions, and a history of food emergencies.

MAURITANIA: Poor rains in Mauritania this year have had a devastating effect on crops and livestock, leading to an inevitable rise in malnutrition. Between 10 and 15 per cent of the population is malnourished, and the figure is even higher among children. An IFRC team is monitoring the situation by screening children using a basic toolkit; bracelets to measure arm circumference, height gauge and scales. In addition to the problems that are normally associated with malnutrition, children are also more prone to disease and less able to fight off infection.

GLOSSARY:

ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

It is dusk in Colombo. A profusion of auto-rickshaws populate the streets, racing to transport weary people from work to home. The rains have come, some days fierce and relentless, other days playful and teasing. En-route from the Red Cross office, I spot two elephants lounging in front of a buddhist temple, lazily snapping bamboo stalks with their trunks, oblivious to the curious onlookers. This is my favorite time of day. This is when I head to the liveliest place in the city.

As an International Services Program Officer at the American Red Cross, I spend the majority of my time in Washington, D.C. liaising with field staff, but also undertake periodic trips to our field offices for project monitoring and support. For the past two and a half years I have worked on the Tsunami Recovery Program, which covered more than 85 relief and recovery projects in 10 countries affected by the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Life has returned to some semblance of normalcy. For me, nothing illustrates this better than Galle Face Green.

Galle Face Green, a promenade that stretches across the financial and business district of Colombo and runs parallel to the Indian Ocean, is a robust affair. It is a cheerful amalgamation of picnicking families, shrieking school children playing chase with the high tide, foodstall vendors selling fried fish and popcorn, kite enthusiasts, and laughter. It is my happy place where I go to reflect upon the day. And it is a happy place for countless families and friends who have reemerged in this wide open space after years of conflict and natural disaster.

This evening, as I stroll beside the sea, a green-eyed Sri Lankan man approaches me, and asks where I am from.

“USA,” I say.

His eyes smile first, crinkling around the corners. A wide grin spreads across his face. “USA,” he says slowly. “Yes, yes, I like USA very much!”

“Why’s that?” I ask, surprised by his unabashed enthusiasm.

He pauses as a serious look of consternation darkens his brow. “I am from a small village on the coast, he says.. My village was very badly affected by the tsunami. It was very difficult. But the American Red Cross had a project in my village and helped us a lot.”

Now I smile, ever-so-slightly. “Did it make a difference?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says thoughtfully, “it did.” A wide grin once again breaks across his face.

We chat a bit more before parting ways. I never tell him that I work for the American Red Cross. It didn’t seem necessary. Instead, I wander over to a bench to watch the sunset. What I think to myself, as the sky erupts in brilliant, firey tones is that years later our work still matters. People rebuild their lives and move on and new disasters occupy the media, but the impact of our work and the lives it touched remains. It also reminds me that as valuable as the tools are that we use to measure impact, certainly the most rewarding (while perhaps not the most technical indicator of success) is an honest, unsolicited response from a stranger… and a smile.

This Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up is courtesy of Scott Waggoner, from Cross Blog: Award-winning Red Cross news and views from Oregon and beyond

Welcome to the Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It’s a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work…

PHILIPPINES: Last week tropical storm Washi swept through entire villages in several areas of the Philippines, causing the deaths of an estimated nearly 1,000 people and massive damage to infrastructure, including the water system. The ICRC, led by it’s local partner the Philippine Red Cross, distributed food packs, essential household items and hygiene kits for 18,000 people in three of the areas hardest hit within the first 48 hours. With more than 270,000 people now lacking access to clean drinking water, ICRC water and habitat engineers are devising ways to bring water from the undamaged water sources and of storing it for use by the survivors.

HAITI: The Haiti Red Cross Society is working to recycle rubble from the earthquake in 2010 to prepare for future disasters. So far they have been able to take 25,000 cubic meters of rubble and have local residents process it into concrete blocks, paving slabs or walls which will stop the ground from slipping away during Haiti’s next heavy rains or in case of another earthquake. The rubble recycling is just one part of the Haiti Red Cross Society’s neighborhood development support that assists in providing shelters, access to water and sanitation, and job opportunities along with training and technical support.

SOMALIA: Torrential rains that started in the southern provinces of Somalia in early October were welcomed in the drought stricken nation, however most roads were turned into rivers that have slowed down transport and delivery of food aid. Together with the Somali Red Crescent Society, the ICRC has distributed beans, rice and oil to over 917,000 people in southern and central Somalia. This will help farmers bridge the gap until January, when they will be able to harvest from seed the ICRC has also distributed.

NORTH KOREA: In North Korea, meager crops were severely damaged after being struck by a typhoon and flooding in July and August. Now, with the arrival of the first snow, people in the area are busy preparing for what they expect to be a severe winter. The Red Cross Society of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, supported by the IFRC, has so far distributed 288 metric tons of yellow maize to 6,051 of the most vulnerable families (24,827 people) who were severely affected by floods and subsequent food shortages in three target counties in South Hwanghae province.

GLOSSARY:

ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies