The Red Cross Round-up

The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: It has been one month since the worst floods in Solomon Islands’ history killed 22 people, destroyed homes and properties and disrupted the lives of more than 50,000 people – 10 percent of the country’s population – in the capital Honiara and surrounding plains in Guadalcanal Province.  Families are beginning to return to their properties to repair and rebuild, but the devastation can still be seen in every turn along the Mataniko River and the hundreds of communities affected in the Guadalcanal Plains.  More than 4,000 of those people worst affected remain in evacuation centres in Honiara, where Solomon Islands Red Cross continues to deliver purified drinking water everyday, essential in the prevention of the spread of waterborne diseases.  

SIERRA LEONE: Only 57 per cent of the population in Sierra Leone has access to safe drinking water sources. As a result, waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, hepatitis A, cholera and typhoid are widespread. The Sierra Leone Red Cross Society has been implementing community-based health programs for over two decades. It uses the community-based health and first aid approach to train its community health volunteers on hygiene, first aid, disease prevention and nutritional needs.
 
SOMALIA: Internal conflict spanning more than two decades has resulted in the disintegration of Somalia’s infrastructure and significantly weakened the government’s capacity to respond to the basic needs of the population, such as access to clean water and appropriate sanitation facilities, adequate healthcare and effective security services.  Delivery of key services to prevent maternal and child morbidity and mortality forms the core of the Somali Red Crescent Society’s health programming. Immunization is one of the best, most cost-effective services available to prevent childhood illness. Through its network of 58 maternal and child health/out-patients clinics, 23 mobile health units and 4,600 volunteers, the Somali Red Crescent Society in Somaliland and Puntland provides critical health service to vulnerable populations, including routine immunization.

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