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Every year, May 8 marks World Red Cross Day to commemorate the more than 150 years of humanitarian actions by the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement around the world.

Large-scale disasters like the Nepal earthquake last week continue to remind us of the importance of being ready. Canada is not immune to disasters, as we saw with the Alberta floods and the Lac-Mégantic train derailment in 2013.

We mark Emergency Preparedness Week (May 3-9) here in Canada by encouraging everyone to be ready.

Defining a child soldier, determining appropriate treatment for prisoners of war, and negotiating peaceful resolutions were among the tasks completed recently by university students participating in a Red Cross club workshop at the University of Calgary.  

The interactive Paxium workshop focused on International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and increased awareness of the difficult decisions political, military, and civilian personnel have to make during conflicts.

The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.

The Canadian Red Cross is part of a delegation visiting Ebola-affected areas of West Africa this week, accompanying Dr. Greg Taylor, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, in visits to various treatment centres and in affected communities. Canadian Red Cross President and CEO, Conrad Sauvé, and Stephen Cornish, executive director of MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières), were part of the delegation.

Floods are the most frequent and costly natural disasters in Canada. A flood is often caused by heavy rainfall and the rapid melting of a thick snow pack in the spring. During this time the majority of Canadian rivers, and other large bodies of water, swell, increasing the risk of flooding. The potential for flood damage is particularly high where there is development on low-lying, flood-prone lands.

Canadian Red Cross delegate Karen Leiva is currently on a mission in Micronesia with the International Federation of Red Cross to assess the damage caused by Typhoon Maysak. It’s considered a silent disaster, as it has gone mostly unnoticed outside of the region and occurred on the heels of another emergency in the Pacific, Cyclone Pam. The Red Cross responds to hundreds of these silent disasters every year. Karen shares some of the challenges of reaching remote communities.

The 2015 Canadian Red Cross Day of Pink on April 8th reached across the entire province of Manitoba with more than 335 schools and workplaces joining in on the celebrations.