August 25, 2019 marks two years since the Bangladesh Population Movement began. Since 2017, more than 700,000 people have fled violence in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state for Bangladesh. Many international aid workers, like Canadian Red Crosser Norine Naguib, continue to support the efforts there.

It’s 3 a.m. and Parnian Hosseini’s phone is ringing insistently. ‘Red Cross, Parnian speaking. How can I help you?’. Parnian is a highly-trained volunteer who helps answer the 24/7 emergency assistance line, read about how she is using her skills to make a difference in the lives of those who are living through an emergency or disaster. 

Brandy Cherarmie lived through Hurricane Katrina, where she saw firsthand the help that the Red Cross provides. Since then, she has joined as a volunteer and and has travelled around Canada helping people impacted by emergencies and disasters. 

The evening in February began as a celebration of the Okotoks Dawgs baseball team at its annual banquet dinner – and ended early when the guest speaker had a medical emergency.

Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame member and renowned sports journalist and author Bob Elliott was just minutes into his speech when he went into cardiac arrest and lost consciousness.
 

Earlier in 2019, students came together to come up with innovative solutions for the complex response to Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this guest blog post, the winning team talks about their solution. 

Since the discovery of the Ebola virus, in 1976, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has experienced ten outbreaks. The deadliest one yet is currently ravaging the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. We’re talking about thousands of people impacted – dozens of new cases are identified each day, limited access to affected populations, armed groups who are not helping the situation and the increasingly obvious threat of the disease spreading to bordering countries. However, what we are not hearing about are the real-life consequences of the virus on survivors, on their family and on their community.