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Best known for our emergency response work, the Canadian Red Cross is often first at the scene providing basic necessities to evacuees during times of disaster. Less well-known, but just as important to the Red Cross, is helping evacuated communities get back to their regular lives and celebrate being able to return home.

When people need to evacuate, they often don’t have the opportunity to take with them the basics like shampoo, toothpaste, diapers and baby supplies. Learn how the Red Cross helped provide essential items to people impacted by flooding this spring.

To mark National Indigenous Peoples Day, we wanted to share some of the ways Red Cross is working in partnership with Indigenous communities across the country, in response to disasters as well as through programs to promote preparedness, safety, and wellbeing.
 

Learn more about The Gathering Centre, a Red Cross program which focuses on bringing together elders in the First Nations community in Peawanuck. 

Last week, I accompanied the Canadian Red Cross outreach team as they were visiting First Nation communities affected by the BC Wildfires and was reminded that no community or individual is too far to be reached. 

The Fort McMurray area is home to almost 90,000 people. Each of them has their own experience and story after May’s wildfires tore through the region. That’s why Red Cross case workers continue to meet with families and individuals to talk through their personal needs and find effective ways to assist. Reaching those people means working alongside community groups like the Nistawoyou Association Friendship Centre. The Canadian Red Cross is partnering with the Centre to help connect with aboriginal residents.

A celebration of resiliency and togetherness brought together Fort McMurray’s Metis community at its annual Metis Festival on July 25^th. The event was delayed a couple of months because of the wildfire in May.
McMurray Metis’ office, storage and entire site was destroyed by the wildfire that swept through the community, forcing thousands of people to evacuate. While fortunately the group was able to save many of its archives, all of its data and documentation was lost

As an emergency management director, Angela McKenzie is used to helping others from the Fort McKay First Nation deal with disaster. So, it was doubly challenging when wildfires swept north from Fort McMurray and forced her to flee, along with her new baby and hundreds of others, through dense smoke and flames.