I’ll admit it. I’m not much of a hiker. If I had to choose, I would pick reading a book on the beach to hiking mountains any day. But I just came back from hiking through the mountains for seven hours in Honduras and even though my legs are sore, I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.

It's hard to believe that 2014 has very nearly come to a close. Nostalgia has officially kicked in and we’ve started to reminisce over all the notable events that occurred in the last twelve months. While many top 10 lists focus on the newsworthy stories from pop culture, sports and science, we thought we’d also take a minute to look back at the year in Red Cross Talks posts. So, without further ado, here are our ten favourite posts of 2014 in no particular order. 

While most of us will be spending the holidays with our families and friends, we wanted to highlight the special individuals working with the Canadian Red Cross who have sacrificed their holidays here at home to help those in need overseas. 

Since Typhoon Hagupit made landfall in the Philippines earlier this month, the Philippine Red Cross has been busy providing emergency relief and assessing damage in the hard-hit area of Samar Island.

The Red Cross has set up a basic health care unit in Dolores, Eastern Samar Province to provide services until health care facilities in the area can resume normal activities, with technical support for this clinic being provided by the Canadian Red Cross. 

Looking around Azraq refugee camp, in Jordan’s north-eastern desert, life seems peaceful, if rudimentary. Children run and play in the camp’s streets, parents shop at the central supermarket, and social and religious activities are growing as refugee families re-establish connections with neighbours. Some Syrian residents can be seen with crutches or other medical equipment, recovering from lingering wounds or long-untreated chronic illnesses.

Many of us have heard the term Meals on Wheels and understand the gist of what it entails, but the Canadian Red Cross program offers more than you might expect.

Yasmin sits in the paediatric ward of the Red Cross Red Crescent hospital in Azraq refugee camp, holding her two-month-old twin boys as they cough and wheeze. She appears calm and composed as she rubs the back of first Nadim and then Mohammed Nur. Both boys have developed an infection in the airways that lead to their lungs. The twins were born in Jordan days after Yasmin, 28, crossed the border as a refugee with her husband and two children.

Nawaf was three years into a challenging five-year bachelor’s degree in computer and information engineering in Damascus when the ongoing Syrian conflict forced him to put his dreams on pause. His family had already fled the country some 18 months before, but Nawaf, 24, and the oldest of seven siblings, stayed behind.