Community Health 28

A unique drama club has formed in Juba. A group of five Red Cross friends travel the city and perform open street shows to help spread messages on cholera prevention.

Mamadou Saidon Bah wakes up each morning not knowing if he will spend his day grading student assignments and preparing lectures for his work as a teacher, or if he will instead lead a group of young volunteers from the local Red Cross branch on a mission to collect the body of yet another victim of the growing Ebola epidemic.

As communications staff at the Canadian Red Cross, we often get the opportunity to meet some of the many amazing individuals who contribute to our humanitarian work worldwide.

For parents, back to school means a lot of different things such as school supply shopping, back to work, extracurricular activities, homework and more work/life juggling. 

It also means the return of the sniffles.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent Mobile Health Unit is always welcomed in Ghuzlaniyah, a village situated 20 kilometres east of Damascus, where men, women and children flock to the vehicle to form lines to wait for medical consultations.

Canadian Red Crosser Chiran Livera who was recently in South Sudan to aid in the cholera outbreak in South Sudan shares the story of a small two-year-old boy who got sick and started showing all the common signs of cholera – dehydration, vomiting and muscle cramps. He was brought to the to the Red Cross community health tent that has been specifically set-up to detect and assist with early intervention of cholera.

Delivering food to housebound Toronto residents, the Canadian Red Cross Mobile Food Bank also delivers a healthy serving of community support.

To celebrate World Humanitarian Day on August 19^th, Red Cross Talks is featuring a few Canadian Red Cross delegates who have dedicated themselves to helping others in humanitarian relief efforts around the world and here at home.