To mark this year’s World Red Cross Red Crescent Day on 8 May, the Belize Red Cross Society is celebrating the contributions of young people and encouraging their continued action and leadership under the global theme, “Youth on the move”.

In solidarity with the International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, the Belize Red Cross will host an OPEN DAY on 8th May from 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Headquarters at #1 Gabourel Lane, Belize City. The event is part of a global Movement effort to take action and make a difference in helping communities and our young people to better understand the work of the Belize Red Cross as we prepare for disasters and emergencies, address equal access to health care and promote and build a culture of non violence and peace.

“Young people have a critical role in helping the Red Cross Red Crescent reach the most vulnerable. They also have an important role to play in building healthy communities,” explained Ashanta Osborne, Chair of the Youth Commission for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Half of the 13 million Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers worldwide are young people and the Belize Red Cross contributes approximately 53% of their total volunteers to this figure. The Red Cross Red Crescent recognizes the important value they bring to our communities, by leading positive change on a daily basis through their participation in designing and implementing program and project activities.

“Without our young people and volunteers on a whole, we could not achieve what we do as a Movement,” stated Director General, Lily Bowman. At the Belize Red Cross, we will empower young people to continue to fulfill leadership roles so they can do more, do better and reach further in service to the most vulnerable. For example, on the Governing Board of the Belize Red Cross sits a youth, representing the young volunteers.

To see “Youth on the move” in our National Societies around the world, visit our online photo exhibition available at www.ifrc.org.The exhibition will include images and short stories of Red Cross Red Crescent youth in action. Other activities and events taking place on 8th May will be highlighted on the IFRC and ICRC Face book pages, Twitter pages and the “Our World. Your Move” blog.

For more information please contact:

Lily Bowman, Director General, Belize Red Cross
Tel: 227-3319 or 627-8801
Email: [email protected]

World Red Cross Day celebrated in Belize

World Red Cross Day is recognized yearly on May eighth. It is a celebration of the work of the organization that has aided the country in many disaster relief efforts. But the institution is not limited to disaster relief and over the years has been offering various services to the public through several programs. This year, the celebrations are being held under the theme, “Together for Humanity” and its focus is youths. Today an Open Day was held at the Red Cross headquarters in Belize City and freelance reporter Duane Moody has this report.

 

Duane Moody, Reporting

Students from various primary schools converged at the headquarters of the Belize Red Cross to participate in its Open Day activities. It is a celebration of the institutions twenty-ninth anniversary as a humanitarian organization that has been selflessly serving vulnerable people throughout the country. Executive Director of the Red Cross, Lily Bowman says that it is to give the students a firsthand knowledge of the work of the Red Cross.

 

Lily Bowman, Executive Director, Belize Red Cross

“Often times they know that we do disaster preparedness, disaster response, but what they don’t know is to what extent we do disaster risk reduction in the off season. They also don’t know some of the other activities and programs that we do carry out. For instance: first aid and CPR. We also carry out a lot of youth activities. We’re telling them about our seven fundamental principles that we are guided by, we are telling them about history of the movement in the world, we are telling them about the Belize Red Cross and how it came about to be a Belize Red Cross—formally it was a branch of the British Red Cross—and we are teaching them a few skills in first aid and CPR. We are also showing them some of the relief items we give out in times of disaster, we have a lot of pictures and posters and things that they can see that have been developed through programs. Then we’ll take them downstairs to the area where we will give them some skills in first aid and CPR; actual demonstrations.”

 

Both locally and internationally, this year’s focus of the Red Cross is on youths and its anniversary is being held under the theme: “Together for Humanity” with the slogan “Youth on the Move.” And to assist with the activities of World Red Cross Day, ten volunteers were recruited from Saint John’s College and Saint Catherine Academy. Volunteer Larsha Flowers says her goal is to make a difference in the minds of her peers.

 

Larsha Flowers, Volunteer, Belize Red Cross

“I always had this thing in my heart that I always wanted to help people, I’m always caring and I always want to reach out and I decided that I need to bring this talent that I have outside of my friends group and outside of my school and bring it out to the world and if I want to start to be somebody who help people in the future and make a difference, I must stat from now.”

 

Duane Moody

“What is it that you want persons out there like yourselves to take home when they do come out here and experience the Open Day for the Belize Red Cross?”

 

Larsha Flowers

“What I truly want them to take in is that I want them to listen to our seven fundamental values; humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. What I basically want them to get is that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from but just come about and help and you yourself can be a volunteer because volunteers are needed right now.”

 

Today is being recognized as World Red Cross Day as a celebration of the organization’s founder, Herny Durant. And Bowman says that the organization has grown its services over the years.

 

Lily Bowman

“We do our famous disaster response, disaster risk reduction, disaster preparedness. We also do first aid training and CPR both basic and advanced. We do training through peer education of HIV and AIDS prevention. We offer psychosocial support. We train homecare givers; that’s people that would like to be in the medical field and cannot make it right now. So this is like a stepping stone; they take care of the sick at home. We have several youth activities through the volunteer program that we have. We visit the sick; we have feeding programs, attend to fire victims and a lot more.”

 

Funding for these programs and services offered by the Red Cross are provided through donations.

 

Lily Bowman

“We get donations or we ask for donations although right now the environment is not very conducive for attracting donations, but basically we thrive on the good hearts of others. We do first aid commercially so we bring in a little bit of funding there. Our homecare givers course brings in a small amount and the government, of course, gives us a small subvention as well.”

 

Duane Moody for News Five.

Channel 5