Quebec News and Stories

Get to know Red Cross volunteers for Red Cross Month

- March Is Red Cross Month, we’re showcasing, in a two-part series, five of our many amazing volunteers who go above and beyond to help others. Volunteers are the heart of the Canadian Red Cross. More than 20,000 Red Cross volunteers share their time and skills to help others every day.

Red Crosser Esther Laforte lends a helping hand to the German Red Cross

- While Germany continues to take in thousands of refugees fleeing violence in their countries, the German Red Cross welcomes them into reception centres and camps. Canadian Red Cross staff member Esther Laforte, Deputy Director, Disaster Management in Quebec, was deployed to a camp in Erding, Germany, to support the German Red Cross' refugee response efforts.

Photos: Canadian Red Cross shipping relief items to aid refugees in Germany

- The Canadian Red Cross is shipping 20,000 relief items (cots and blankets) to support the German Red Cross response to the refugee crisis.

Keeping smiles on kids' faces: Red Cross volunteers entertain children at shelters for evacuated peo

- Red Cross volunteer Fabrice Vanhoutte loves putting a smile on children’s faces. So, he has plenty of tricks up his sleeve for the young people in a Saskatoon shelter.
 
“If I see a kid who is upset, I don’t necessarily go right up to them but I stay nearby and play my mouth organ or start showing a card trick,” says Vanhoutte.
 

Far from home among friends: Red Cross volunteers come from across Canada to help in Saskatchewan

- Lynn MacLeod didn’t worry when she volunteered to fly across the country to help people affected by the Saskatchewan wildfires. She knew that she was well-prepared.

“I’m so happy for all of our Red Cross training! It means I can go anywhere in the country and know how to help,” says MacLeod, who is from Prince Edward Island.

Building a future, one bedsheet at a time, with Canadian Red Cross in Nepal

- Each hospital bedsheet that Deki Tamang washes represents another brick in the new home that she hopes to build for her children one day. Since the Nepal earthquakes reduced her house in Dhunche to rubble, the mother of four has worked full-time at the laundry in the Canadian Red Cross field hospital operating on the site of the original damaged hospital.

Medical teams on the move in Nepal: Canadian Red Cross treats people displaced by the earthquakes

- Rocking and pounding for hours along a rubble-strewn road that looks more like a mountain goat trail, the Canadian Red Cross mobile medical team is on the move. Four times a week, a doctor, nurse and translator with the Canadian field hospital in Dhunche, Nepal, load heavy metal trunks filled with medical supplies and travel to surrounding villages along earthquake-ravaged roads.

Helping to save lives of mothers and babies in Nepal

- Shortly before her first child was due, Diki Dolma trekked for days across mountain trails devastated by the Nepal earthquakes to reach the Canadian Red Cross field hospital in Dhunche.

Canadian aid worker describes delivering aid after Nepal earthquakes

- Fortunately, the roads reopened within a week of the earthquake and we were able to begin transporting supplies by truck.  The team moved quickly to set up camp, assist the local medical staff with their workload and begin mobile clinics on foot to reach otherwise inaccessible communities around Dhunche.

Difference between tornado watch and warning and other tips to be prepared

- Summer brings warmer weather but also an increase in frequency of tornado warnings and watches. On average, Canada gets 62 tornadoes a year and they can have devastating effects on homes and communities. Do you know the difference between a tornado watch and warning? Are you prepared if there is a tornado in your region?