Red Cross Talks (Page 57)

Tucked away at the back of the Nhamatanda hospital grounds, sits a small, faded-yellow house. Following the cyclones in Mozambique, access to healthcare presented a challenge for the people staying there - expectant mothers who now have easy access to care. 

Do you imagine drowning to be splashy and loud, with arms flailing and screams for help, as perhaps seen in a movie? If you thought you could hear if a loved one was drowning, you would be sorely mistaken. The reality is that someone could be drowning a few feet away from you and you wouldn’t know it – because drowning is often silent.

Meet Jason, a Canadian Red Cross volunteer who uses his technical skills to focus on logistics. Volunteers like Jason play a critical role in making sure responses to disasters run smoothly, and the supplies that are needed get where they need to go. 

Cor Zandbergen has been helping people his entire life. In 1971, as an 18 year old, he joined the Volunteer Fire Department and Ambulance Service in the town of Mackenzie, B.C. Since then, he’s been an active volunteer with the Vancouver Police Department, Vernon Search and Rescue, and of course the Red Cross. In fact, you would have to try pretty hard to find a time when he wasn’t volunteering to better his community.

Because communication is essential, the work of translators is vital. Meet three translators who are helping people impacted by Cyclone Idai and Cyclone Kenneth in Mozambique.  
 

Volunteer Tammy Saunders joined the Canadian Red Cross in the spring of 2012. A self-employed commercial fisher, Tammy says the seasonal nature of her work gives her portions of the year that she likes to fill with volunteering.
 

Recently, I had a couple panic-inducing situations with my five-year-old nephew where I was very glad I had the Canadian Red Cross First Aid app on my phone. It helped mitigate some natural-born panic and saved my nephew some pain since my natural instincts were in direct opposition to what I should do to properly care for him.

The Red Cross field hospital in Mozambique has opened a specialized malaria treatment centre to support people affected by Cyclone Idai. This is in addition to the existing cholera treatment unit that has been operating at the Nhamatanda rural hospital since early April.