In May 2016, a devastating wildfire in Alberta forced the evacuation of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes all of the residents in Fort McMurray. More than 80,000 people were forced to seek safety and shelter away from their homes. The Canadian Red Cross was on the ground early to help provide assistance throughout the month-long evacuation and after people returned home. Two years later, the Red Cross remains in the region and is committed to helping the people who were impacted recover at their own pace.
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Nearly one year ago, my colleague Martin De Vries described the first rains of 2017 to fall on the desperately drought-affected district of Kindo Koysha in southern Ethiopia. The occasion was joyous but all too short-lived. As Martin concluded then: “Has the drought ended? Not by a long way.” I arrived in Ethiopia three months later to find incredibly resilient people coping with varying degrees of recurrent drought in their regular ways; ways unfathomable to most of us in Canada.
Three years after a massive earthquake hit Nepal, the Canadian Red Cross remains on the ground with a focus on improving health in communities that were impacted by the disaster. See their work in action.
Two members of the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Red Cross Club are showing other young people how to turn their passion into action. Students Jessilyn Wong and Daniel Jin volunteer with the Canadian Red Cross Disaster Management logistics team, arranging vehicles, supplying technology, and taking inventory of supplies that helped the Red Cross assist thousands of people forced from their homes by last summer’s B.C. wildfires.
Even before he left Iran, 22-year-old Mohammad H. Asadi Lari knew he wanted to volunteer with the Red Cross. Now the B.C. volunteer works with the Youth Advisory Committee to engage youth and young adults with international humanitarian work done by both the Red Cross and Canada as a whole.
A note to new or aspiring volunteers: “I know this volunteer position will be one of the most rewarding thing you’ve ever done. To help a fellow citizen in a time of disaster will make you feel unbelievably great.”
À quels endroits dans le monde le Mouvement de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge a-t-il apporté son aide en 2016? Un nouveau rapport, publié par la Fédération internationale des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge (la Fédération internationale) contient la réponse à cette question.
As Canadians, we know what it’s like to suffer through a long winter and full of hope we prepare for warmer weather and spring. However, with warmer weather and melting snow, we should also prepare for flooding.