International 3

Most Canadian Red Cross international emergency health clinic deployments last four weeks.  In fall 2020, however, Garry Enns of Manitoba was the first Canadian Red Cross humanitarian worker to support the clinic from start to finish.

On August 30, the Canadian Red Cross, along with members of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, mark the International Day of the Disappeared. For the families of those missing, each passing day without contact from their loved ones is one of uncertainty and anguish.

Hit by several significant emergencies in recent years, the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on August 14 caused more damage, destroying critical infrastructure resulting in more than 2,180 deaths, more than 12,200 injuries, and 298 people missing so far. The Red Cross has been working to meet the urgent needs of people impacted since the first moments after the earthquake occurred. 

Jules Zanré, a Montrealer originally from Burkina Faso, has spent the last 10 years improving access to health care for mothers, newborns, and children in many rural communities of Mali.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as information began to flow into Canada about how serious this disease might become, Alberta Health Services started ramping up their testing capacity. Some 10,000 kilometres away in Southeast Asia, the Philippine Red Cross took notice.

Lucia Lasso is one of two full-time Head of Emergency Operations with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which means she’s almost always thinking about disasters. But even when she’s not actively engaged in an operation, she spends her time thinking about how the Red Cross can respond to emergencies more effectively. This includes encouraging other women to aspire to positions of leadership.

Can you think about the last time you started a new job? How everything was new for you, processes were confusing. Now, imagine that this new job is responding to the resurgence of Ebola in a neighbouring country during a pandemic. This is the tough job Jimmy Zaka Mansongele had to face when he was sent to the Republic of Congo as an Operations Manager for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC).

“Learning sewing came to me as a blessing for myself and the community,” Minara Begum, a resident in Camp 5 said fondly. Minara lives in the camp, with her parents. They had been living on aid provided from different agencies for people who fled from violence in the Rakhine state of Myanmar.