Emergency

​The image of a group of women heading out to the makeshift camps in Bangladesh, their Red Cross t-shirts visible beneath their lightweight headscarves, remains in the mind of Denyse Bourgault. Bourgault was on the ground in the Cox’s Bazar district as a psychosocial support (PSS) delegate from the Canadian Red Cross to help those who crossed the border fleeing violence in Myanmar.

On a stifling and humid afternoon in November, Julekha ‘Juli’ Akter sat on the floor of a small tent for families in the transit camp for vulnerable people arriving in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in Myanmar. The 18-year-old Bangladesh Red Crescent Society volunteer held the hand of an elderly woman, never breaking eye contact as the newcomer tearfully explained her journey.

A tiny baby, wrapped tightly in blankets, his face just peeking out, sleeps tucked up against his resting mother, under the watchful eye of his grandmother. It’s a scene that plays out all over the world, but in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh on Nov. 25 this story nearly had a different ending.

Even in the heat, the woven bamboo siding on the Canadian Red Cross mobile medical clinic in Kutupalong camp keeps it cool inside. Sherry Humphrey, a registered nurse, sits next to her translator on a short red stool as the pair works out why Halima came to the clinic.

The giggles of excited children could be heard over everything else. A couple of the observant kids outside one of the Canadian Red Cross mobile clinics in Kutupalong camp, spotted team leader Patrice Gordon sorting through a bag with toys. It didn’t take long after she stepped out into the bright sun, for a small swarm of these little, dusty bodies to flock around her.

​Haibur Rahman sits on a chair in front of hundreds of people in Burma Para camp in Bangladesh. He pauses for a moment. Someone hands him a megaphone. He takes a deep and begins to sing. He doesn’t have formal training, but the audience is moved. Some hold their heads in their hands, others wipe away tears. Haibur is singing a song of his people and their experiences leaving their home while fleeing violence in Myanmar.

When a disaster strikes, the Canadian Red Cross quickly mobilizes to meet people’s basic needs: shelter, food, clothing, registration and so on. But there’s another aspect of the Red Cross response that’s perhaps not as well-known, but is equally important to the people impacted by the disaster:  our work to support psychosocial wellbeing in times of crisis and through the long recovery phase after disasters.

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. In the humanitarian sector, particularly in emergencies, innovations often come about in response to a specific challenge that forces organizations like the Canadian Red Cross to adapt and change processes.