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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. 
 

Islem Cheriet is a physiotherapist from Montreal who has been working for the ICRC in Yemen since January 2015. Islem recently helped a little girl, fitting her for a prosthesis and teaching her to walk again.
 
Hayat means "life" in Arabic, but at the age of three, little Hayat has experienced more sorrow than most adults. Her home in the Al-Qaflah area of Amran governorate in Yemen was destroyed in an airstrike. Her much-loved younger sister Dunia was killed. Hayat suffered severe shrapnel injuries and her right foot was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated.

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.

Canadian Red Cross aid worker Erwan Cheneval recently took on an important role in helping coordinate the flood response caused by Cyclone Chedza in Madagascar. As Operations Manager for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), Erwan helped liaise between the Malagasy Red Cross and the IFRC to see the operation through its final two months of implementation.

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.

The Red Cross uses many different ways to provide assistance in countries around the world. In this case, bikes! In March, a ceremony took place to mark the donation of 50 bicycles and first aid kits from the Chinese Red Cross to its Senegalese counterpart.

After spending more than two years in South Sudan, Canadian Red Cross worker Pamela Riley brings home her many experiences and memories, as well as a sense of achievement in successfully building projects and relationships, including having a baby named after her.