The Red Cross is supporting two hospitals by sending three nurses and medical supplies from Finland to Iraq. The hospitals are being used to treat people wounded in the fighting in Mosul.
The World AIDS Day animation “The Rise and Fall of Angry Aids” details how the treatment and prevention of HIV has progressed from the point of view of an angry AIDS character.
The number of asylum seekers has decreased significantly. As reception centres are being closed, the Finnish Red Cross is focusing on developing the quality of the services provided, which has also lead to significant financial savings. An example of this is moving from canteens to independent meals.
Next year the Finnish Red Cross will distribute 60,000 kilograms of food in Finland as EU aid. In addition to the aid from the EU, the Rauma branch also distributes leftover school meals and unsold products from grocery stores to those in need.
Health care services in Syria have all but collapsed, and help is needed urgently. To this end the Finnish Red Cross is challenging everyone to participate in the Hunger Day Collection, to be held on 15–17 September.
The Finnish Red Cross opened a new Kontti Second Hand Department Store in Itäkeskus, in Helsinki, on 4 August. Even though the weather was rainy, the opening attracted a large crowd of Helsinki citizens.
The Amiri family, from Afghanistan, fled war and death, but were separated on the way. With help from the Red Cross tracing, the father and the eldest son were able to contact each other, but the mother and the youngest child are still missing.
The Finnish parliament will cast their final vote on the government’s motion on the stricter conditions of family reunification. A total of 17 non-governmental organisations are appealing to the MPs to abandon these cruel and short-sighted new conditions. The organisations include refugee organisations, human rights groups and children’s rights organisations.
The start of the “Summer Rubber” sexual health campaign and the festival season were celebrated at the traditional YleXPop event in Lahti on Saturday. This year, the event also featured a sexual health kiosk that provides the opportunity to pass a condom skills test or to ask any sex-related questions.
The asylum seekers living in Vantaa wanted to help Finnish people in return, and so they signed up as volunteers for the Finnish Red Cross. This friend group, jointly formed by the local branches in Tikkurila, Western Vantaa and Korso, visits an assisted living facility every week.
Two massive earthquakes struck Nepal a year ago. Almost 9,000 people died and nearly a million buildings were destroyed. Over five million people suffered from the consequences of the earthquake. The Red Cross has been there since the start of the disaster.
The Good Holiday Spirit campaign helps less fortunate families to forget their everyday troubles for a moment, at least for the holidays. Inka Poikela can still remember what receiving a food voucher felt like.
According to the school health survey of 2009, every tenth Finnish youth feels lonely and more and more young people do not have a single friend. The funds raised during the Common Responsibility for Youth (Yhteisvastuu nuoresta) project, ending at the end of the year, were directed at preventing the increasing loneliness of young people during the last three years.
Culture must be taken into account more carefully in preventing disasters and in rebuilding, says the new World Disasters Report published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The Finnish Red Cross needs you all to pitch in and help with the Hunger Day Collection from 18–20 September 2014. Everyone is welcome to take part in this year’s Hunger Day campaign. No previous Red Cross experience is required. Collectors and donors are needed all over Finland.
The Finnish Red Cross commissioned a survey about the joys and concerns of people living in Finland. More than half of those who responded are worried about the growing gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’.
The Finnish Red Cross helps refugees to integrate in their new hometown. In Pudasjärvi in northern Finland the local International Club has quickly become a popular meeting place.
The Finnish Red Cross’s new app for tablet devices drew an interested crowd at the World Village Festival in Helsinki in late May 2014. The Risk Zones app offers information about development cooperation and disaster relief.
The Finnish Red Cross is the first NGO in Finland to release an app for tablet devices. The Risk Zones application uses photos, videos, stories and graphics to show how people can minimise risks, prepare for and survive disasters.
Red Cross volunteers in the Tampere region have been providing psychological support to the families who lost someone in the air crash on Sunday 20 April 2014, which took the life of eight skydivers.
The Voluntary Rescue Service emergency response groups help people in need and make it easier for the authorities to access greater numbers of people prepared to help out in an emergency. In late March 2014, the Voluntary Rescue Service celebrated its 50th anniversary in Tampere.
During the Week Against Racism (17–23 March 2014), the Finnish Red Cross handed out its annual Pioneer Against Prejudice Awards (Ennakkoluuloton edelläkävijä in Finnish) to companies, communities and people who have contributed to creating equality in Finland.
Nurse and first-aid instructor Johanna Arvo from Kaarina, Finland, went to Paraguay as part of an EU Aid Volunteers programme in which the Finnish Red Cross is involved.
On 17 February, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will mark its 150th anniversary and commemorate the beginning of its efforts to bring relief to millions and improve the lives of countless people adversely affected by armed conflict.
Treating injured victims of the drawn-out and increasingly brutal conflict in Syria are part of everyday life at a hospital in Amman, Jordan. Thanks to the efforts of the Red Crescent, at least some of the tragic stories here will have a happy ending.
Particularly Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are headed towards a humanitarian crisis due to drought. The Red Cross provides relief aid to the areas in most critical condition.
Each morning around six o’clock, Finnish Red Cross aid worker Pauli Immonen wakes up in his tent at the Port-au-Prince airport. Having had breakfast, he is off to the logisticians’ meeting at the nerve centre of the International Red Cross, the main camp, from which the Haiti operation is coordinated.
The International Red Cross is preparing to help quake victims in Haiti over at least a three-year period. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimate that some 60,000 families, or some 300,000 people, are in need of aid. The IFRC now estimates that providing them with aid over three years will cost a total of EUR 73 million.
A second batch of relief supplies leaves the Finnish Red Cross logistics centre in Tampere today, en route to Haiti. The supplies, including 240 family tents big enough to house a family of six, are first transported to Berlin by lorry. Also bound for Germany are 600 tarpaulins which can be used to build temporary shelters. In Berlin the Finnish supplies will join a German Red Cross field hospital and be flown to Port-au-Prince.
On Friday, 15 January 2010, the Finnish Red Cross has sent a mobile clinic to the earthquake zone in Haiti. A total of twelve aid workers have also been sent to Haiti to get the clinic up and running, and will then work in it. Eight of the aid workers are from Finland, two from Sweden and two from France.
