A former Iranian solider and long-time volunteer, Mahmood Jafari, now calls the Canadian Red Cross his family.
After leaving friends and relatives behind in 1997 to migrate to Calgary, his lonely transition was made easier after he met two former Red Cross staffers, Peter Worsley and Vince Bodnar, who encouraged him to volunteer. Although Mahmood suffered a serious injury in Iraq that left him in a wheelchair, he agreed Red Cross would be a good way to help others.
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Canmore resident Dave Bateman is a registered nurse and the Director of Clinical Care at the Prostate Cancer Centre in Calgary. He spent a month in a refugee camp in Erding, Germany, assisting the German Red Cross.
The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.
In October 2015, a young woman in the municipality of Bánica shared her positive experience with me.
Juana Maria Carvajal Colon, 21, who was eight- months pregnant at the time, lives with her husband and six-year-old daughter. Juana and her sister had recently participated in a Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) training session organized by the Dominican Red Cross in her community.
Earthquakes don’t come with built in warning systems. For millions of people in many of B.C.’s largest cities, Tuesday’s quake was a wake up call. What will yours be?
The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.
For the past 26 years, Phyllis Wiscombe of Arnes, Manitoba, has given her time to help people affected by disasters, train future disaster responders and improve the Red Cross’s capacity to help people in need. For her outstanding contributions to the movement, Wiscombe recently received the Order of the Red Cross, the highest honour the Canadian Red Cross can give a volunteer.
End of mission is a time of deep reflection and slow adjustment. When I was deployed to Germany as a Canadian Red Cross delegate, my life changed drastically. Working as an interpreter in a German Red Cross transit camp for refugees, I experienced a complete shift in lifestyle. I went from a quiet 9-5 to non-stop 12 hour shifts, welcoming a thousand refugees every night. I adjusted quickly because the rapid pace of response left no room for easing in. When the end of my mission came, I braced myself for another major life change: going back to normal.