Community Health 26

Today, August 19, marks World Humanitarian Day and to honour aid workers and volunteers around the world, we’ve compiled a few stories of people who dedicate their time to humanitarian efforts.

In 2011, the Canadian Red Cross, with support from the Government of Canada, began the Building Community Resilience Project in South Sudan, supporting the South Sudan Red Cross. Over the course of four years, the project aimed to reach some 25,000 beneficiaries, increasing their capacity to address their food security need.

The goal of the Strength and Spirit campaign may have been to build strength and resilience in First Nations communities, but what it also uncovered was one man’s passion and commitment to the region he grew up in. Robert Whitelaw, better known as Bob, was a family man who put great emphasis on building strong relationships. This ultimately became his legacy and it was all prompted by the Canadian Red Cross Strength and Spirit Campaign.

According to Kassahun Shambo, an emigrant from Ethiopia, being a newcomer to Manitoba can be a frustrating experience. Shambo remembers walking with a friend, another newcomer to Canada, who slipped and injured himself on a patch of ice. The men didn’t know what to do, so they went to a local shopping mall and asked people where they could get medical help.

Medical help can sometimes be far away if you’re living in rural and remote First Nations communities in British Columbia. In the past, getting on-call emergency assistance to people in need could be a major challenge. The First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) is working with the Canadian Red Cross to change that.

With cases of Ebola still surfacing in Sierra Leone on a weekly basis, the Sierra Leone Red Cross has installed information kiosks  throughout the country to serve as a point of reference to communities.

Farmers from western Kenya could not hide the joy on their faces last summer as they filled a large truck with watermelon they had grown themselves. Abdi Khalim was one of the only farmers to experiment with a horticultural crop within the first planting season using the irrigation scheme established by Kenya Red Cross in the Kerio Valley.

This is the story of Ebola survivor Fatmata Amara, approximately 60 years old, as told to Anna MacSwan, British Red Cross.

When we first found out that Ebola had come to Komende Luyama, I felt bad because it was my daughter who had been the initial patient.