Round-up: Updates from Zimbabwe and Greece

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

ZIMBABWE: Sixteen per cent of the population in Zimbabwe is facing food insecurity.  The most affected families include child-headed households, the chronically ill, and generally disadvantaged members of communities.  The Zimbabwe Red Cross Society intends to support 10,830 people in Mudzi and Muzarabani Districts. The operation will provide basic food assistance, agriculture and livelihood support, clean water and hygiene promotion, so as to ameliorate the adverse effects of reduced nutritional intake. The assistance will also address negative coping mechanisms adopted by affected households during the hunger period.

GREECE: Every day, boats carrying vulnerable migrants arrive at the shores of the Greek islands.  On Lesvos, the Hellenic Red Cross has deployed a rescue team of its Athens-based volunteers - firefighters, administrative employees and students - who put their lives on hold for ten days to take part in the humanitarian response to the migration crisis. All the volunteers share the same feeling, that they are more useful here than anywhere else.  During the all-day rescue, the team monitors the coastline looking for the arrivals of new boats. They do not have to look for long as an average of 70 boats arrive each day on the shores of Lesvos.