Red Cross Talks (Page 75)

Even when kids wear flotation devices and water wings, the water can quickly become a source of stress for parents. That’s why the Red Cross strongly recommends signing kids up for swimming lessons when they are just months old.

The day after Christmas in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan this year was chilly: -35C chilly. Carmen, Jordy, one-year old Otis and the family cat decided to enjoy a fire in their fireplace to warm up. They didn’t know that a squirrel had been hoarding pinecones in their chimney. Their living room quickly filled with smoke and soon the roof of their old home was in flames. 

For the Canadian Red Cross, volunteers are the front line for communities when disaster strikes. 

Canadian Red Crosser Dr. Mausam Bohara shares her experience working on the ground in Bangladesh, providing care for people who are fleeing violence in Myanmar. 

Uganda is currently facing one of the world’s largest refugee crises. As the host country with the largest refugee population in Africa, Uganda hosts an estimated 1.3 million refugees from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi. New arrivals come every day, of which the vast majority are women and children.

High school student Ibrahim Ali Muse joined the Somali Red Crescent Society's response to an outbreak last year. He and other volunteers were a part of a treatnent centre which was supported by the Canadian Red Cross and the Government of Canada. 

​The image of a group of women heading out to the makeshift camps in Bangladesh, their Red Cross t-shirts visible beneath their lightweight headscarves, remains in the mind of Denyse Bourgault. Bourgault was on the ground in the Cox’s Bazar district as a psychosocial support (PSS) delegate from the Canadian Red Cross to help those who crossed the border fleeing violence in Myanmar.

On a stifling and humid afternoon in November, Julekha ‘Juli’ Akter sat on the floor of a small tent for families in the transit camp for vulnerable people arriving in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in Myanmar. The 18-year-old Bangladesh Red Crescent Society volunteer held the hand of an elderly woman, never breaking eye contact as the newcomer tearfully explained her journey.