June 2014 (Page 2)

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

Living with seven kids in four tiny motel rooms for months on end following devastating floods might test the patience of many people, but Phillomene Stevens is just grateful her family is safe.

Slabs of fresh sod draw subtle lines along the High River field where Andrea Vasquez’s kids play soccer now. Just as the park shows few signs of last year’s devastating floods, Vasquez says her family also refuses to be defined by the disaster.

While packing my bags to come to Bosnia and Herzegovina, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d seen pictures of the devastating floods on TV. But it’s one thing to see something on TV, and something else entirely to be standing in the middle of it.

Recently, Canadian Red Cross in Manitoba went on a road trip to train groups of volunteers as members of new Personal Disaster Assistance (PDA) teams in Flin Flon, The Pas and Thompson. The PDA teams, made up entirely of local volunteers, will provide support and basic necessities including clothes and shelter to families that have been displaced by house fires and other small disasters. Here’s a travel journal of the 2,069 kilometre road trip. We hope you enjoy it.

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

While we always talk about what should be in your disaster preparedness kit, we don’t often tell you what goes in ours. When we prepare for disasters we are not only preparing to ensure we can keep working should the worst happen, but also to help take care of those affected by disasters. We make sure that we have the basics: food, water, clothing, and other essential items that we can provide to those in need. We often have other administrative items as well, like: signs, pens, paper, rubber bands, pre-organized paper work and so on, to help us distribute aid in an organized manner.