The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.
BANGLADESH: Bangladesh Red Crescent staff and volunteers have been supporting relief efforts at the Rana Plaza
factory complex since its collapse. In addition to search and rescue activities, medical teams have been caring for the injured as well as helping authorities to manage the dead. Over 350 bodies have so far been retrieved from the rubble since the building collapsed.
KENYA: The extraordinarily rapid spread of mobile telephone use in Africa is nothing but remarkable. It was in Africa in 2001 that mobile phones first outnumbered fixed lines, and by the end of 2012, 70 per cent of Africa’s population was expected to have a mobile phone. Communication has never been so easy and it has opened up new opportunities across the globe. The IFRC, in collaboration with technical partners, developed a low cost, user-friendly survey methodology that allows data to be collected using inexpensive and widely available mobile phones. After a short training period, Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers can conduct surveys and capture data on their mobile phones. The new system is called Rapid Mobile Phone-based survey (RAMP), which is sufficiently flexible to be used for a range of tasks in many fields. The Kenya Red Cross Society conducted the first RAMP survey in 2011 in Malindi district, and results helped assess the depth and nature of the malaria problem and shape the necessary response.
GLOSSARY:
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies