International 16

For some girls in South Sudan, menstruation is not just uncomfortable – it can become a major barrier to stay in school. Here is how the Canadian Red Cross is helping.  

Conflict and displacement across South Sudan has put an enormous strain on health care systems. South Sudan Red Cross, with the support of Canadians and the Government of Canada, is reaching 33,000 women and children with vital health care in remote and hard-to-reach communities.

Gathering water in remote Nepal was already a challege, but after the devestating earthquake in 2015 it only became more difficult. Read how the Red Cross is helping bring water closer to remote communities.

Nearly one year ago, my colleague Martin De Vries described the first rains of 2017 to fall on the desperately drought-affected district of Kindo Koysha in southern Ethiopia. The occasion was joyous but all too short-lived. As Martin concluded then: “Has the drought ended? Not by a long way.” I arrived in Ethiopia three months later to find incredibly resilient people coping with varying degrees of recurrent drought in their regular ways; ways unfathomable to most of us in Canada.

Three years after a massive earthquake hit Nepal, the Canadian Red Cross remains on the ground with a focus on improving health in communities that were impacted by the disaster. See their work in action. 

Debby Cote, Program Manager for Asia at the Canadian Red Cross took a moment to talk to us about the regional resilience initiative, and how the program is working to help build the resilience of partner Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. 

Where in the world did people receive help from the Movement in 2016? A new report published by IFRC can tell you exactly where. The report gathers data from 190 National Societies worldwide, and offers insights into humanitarian and societal trends such as spontaneous volunteering; how volunteer numbers rise and then stabilize following a major disaster, and how indicators are affected by sociodemographic factors such as population size and the Human Development Index.

By 9 a.m., fog has burned off and I am already looking for shade as we begin the hour-long walk through the makeshift settlement in Kutupalong. We are headed to the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society mobile clinic. After many trips, we know the trail reasonably well, only occasionally needing the local volunteers to guide us through new market areas or construction sites, which seem to appear everyday along the route. We are from different worlds - Bangladesh, Myanmar and Canada - yet we chat easily about the work day to come. What was chaotic and overwhelming a few weeks ago has become familiar – it is easy to forget that this great sprawling village is one of the largest camps of displaced people in the world.