Red Cross Talks (Page 71)

Red Cross Societies around the world have been working with refugees displaced by violence and hardship. One Canadian Red Cross employee has a personal perspective on refugees – as he was once a refugee himself.

Omar Abdullahi, a social worker who lives in Winnipeg, volunteers with the safety and wellbeing team of the Canadian Red Cross. He is working with evacuees from the northern Manitoba wildfires.
Before coming to Canada, Omar and his family were refugees from the Somalian civil war. When he was about 10 years old, his family, including his six sisters and two brothers, fled Mogadishu for the Kenyan border.

A volcano is essentially a vent in the Earth’s surface. But, instead of blowing warm air and keeping your feet toasty (like a vent in your home), a volcano exhausts gases, volcanic ash and lava. Volcanoes exist because the Earth’s surface (the crust) is made of tectonic plates and it is estimated that there are 1500 active volcanoes today. 

The residents of the Pauingassi First Nation were evacuated from their community on May 25, due to encroaching wildfires. A remote, and by all accounts, wildly beautiful community, Pauingassi is only accessible by helicopter and float plane. 

Every time Dan hears about another family affected by a house fire, his mind takes him back to a day in March 2017, when his family had their own unimaginable experience. Read about how the Red Cross helped, and how a treasured memory was saved. 

At first glance, it’s hard to understand what Pat Alphonse Cox does for the Canadian Red Cross. Volunteering at the Winnipeg reception centre for wildfire evacuees, Pat chats for a few minutes with a large, boisterous family from Pauingassi First Nation; corrals a small, energetic child closer to her mom; and then sits quietly with a slouching teenager. It all seems a little random, but on closer examination, Pat’s role becomes clear and her work crucial. Pat is a Safety and Wellbeing responder with the Canadian Red Cross.

As the flood waters in Kootenay Boundary Regional District in B.C. receded, the extent of the damage was revealed. The Canadian Red Cross is supporting the recovery efforts by providing cleanup kit, as well as direct financial assistance to impacted households in need on a case-by-case basis.

Did you know that the Red Cross responds to an average of one disaster every three hours in Canada? Our support network extends further than you might think.