Guest blogger Ian Rideout, Red Cross operations director, has been in Cockermouth since 3pm on Thursday with a team of 15 Red Cross swift rescue volunteers. He writes about his experiences below the audio player.

The centre of Cockermouth has been completely destroyed – I’ve never seen anything like it. The water has caused so much damage that many of the homes here are completely ruined.

We’ve been working non-stop since 8pm last night and between the Red Cross and RNLI we’ve rescued in the region of 200 people from their homes.

Last night, I went up in one of the helicopters to get an idea of the full scale of the disaster and where we should focus rescue efforts. Almost straight away we found four people on the roof of their home who needed to be winched to safety.

Most of the people we’ve rescued have been in shock. One minute it’s raining heavily, then the next their home is filling with water and they’re being evacuated by the Red Cross. People have been very grateful though and the volunteers have done a tremendous job. They’ve worked right through the night in dangerous circumstances and have made a huge difference.

Although the waters have now started to subside, they’re still very fast-flowing and there is quite a lot of debris. Thankfully our boats are specially designed to cope with these conditions and are able to manoeuvre in very shallow water. If needs be, they can take a fair bit of damage.

We’ve also been using Red Cross Land Rover 4×4 vehicles to support the ambulance service.

Read our tips on how to prepare for floods and flooding

Listen to an interview with Ian.

The market village of Botley, Hampshire; situated on the River Humble this village is renowned for its picturesque views and tranquil country atmosphere.

Lovely.

However, last weekend, Botley was the scene of something different. 35 young volunteers from throughout Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Surrey descended on a local campsite. The reason? To take part in our 2009 area youth conference.

I’m proud to be a part of the Youth & Schools department in Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Surrey. We have over 100 young people who volunteer as peer educators. They do amazing work running first aid awareness sessions and workshops on humanitarian issues such as HIV and AIDS. In addition, we have an enthusiastic team of adult volunteers who support our young volunteers and help them develop their skills and confidence.

This year, we’re on track to reach around 50,000 people with first aid and humanitarian education. Wow!

To support our volunteers, every year we hold a residential conference open to all volunteers who work with young people.

This year, to kick off the weekend, we ran an activity where young people had to design and build something that, to them, conveyed a message about the Red Cross. Equipped with a collection of old newspapers, straws and Red Cross stickers our next generation of creative geniuses set to work. Needless to say they came up with some impressive creations (see right!).

Saturday, we held a variety of workshops for young volunteers. These ranged from casualty simulation (learning how to make fake wounds using make-up), ambulance skills (all about working on Red Cross ambulances) and emergency response (the role of the Red Cross in a major incident). In the evening, we played a ‘Crystal Maze’ style game. Teams of young people had to tackle various activities and gain points. Examples of activities included designing a stamp to raise awareness of World AIDS Day and creating a poem themed around our seven fundamental principles.

Sunday saw more workshops based around Inclusive first aid as well as HIV and AIDS. Finally, to finish off the weekend, many of our young volunteers were presented with awards to recognize their hard work over the past year. Well done to all!

Overall the weekend was incredibly successful. All the young people involved left equipped with skills and confidence to allow them to become successful peer educators. After all, these young people are the future of the Red Cross!

Like many of you, I woke up this morning to the pitter-patter of rainfall on my window. However, I then put my tootsies onto a plush, dry rug and basked for a moment in the heat of the warm radiators. Then I put the morning news on.

It’s hard to even imagine what sort of a nightmare the residents of Cockermouth lived through last night. The small Cumbrian town was devastated by severe flooding so high and fast that the Environment Agency called it ‘unprecedented’. At one point, the main street was eight foot deep in fast-flowing water sweeping all sorts of debris along with it. It must have been terrifying, as well as very destructive.

The one blessing is that weather forecasters gave plenty of notice so people were prepared for the emergency. And that also meant the Red Cross’ swift water rescue team – based in Northern Scotland – had time to get down to the area before the worst of the water hit.

All through last night, our specially trained Red Cross volunteers were out in two boats – working in relays to ensure 24-hour cover – rescuing people who had been stranded in their homes. The news bulletins have been full of stories concerning weak and vulnerable people caught up in the flood, so I’m glad that our experienced people were in the thick of it.

I know most of the Red Cross rescue team (I even worked with them during the Gloucestershire floods a couple of years ago) and they’re as committed a bunch of people as you could hope to meet.

I suspect that, even as I type, they’ll be chugging up the main street of Cockermouth, probably dirty, wet and exhausted after a long night’s work – but determined to carry on until every last person in the town is safe and accounted for. It’s enough to make you feel ‘umble.

Speaking to a colleague this morning I learned the British Red Cross has launched a blog where staff and volunteers recount their adventures. My interest aroused, I had a quick look and there was something vaguely familiar about the place. It rang a bell. A small, distant bell like one a diminutive headmistress might ring in a school for ants far, far away, but a bell nonetheless. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I was one of the bloggers!

This weekend brings a new therapeutic care course. Eleven plucky volunteers will learn how to deliver hand and arm and neck and shoulder massage over clothing so we can help people going through times of stress and crisis. The service was recently reviewed by service users through the Open University so let’s have a quote from someone with Parkinson’s disease: “I definitely know if I’m relaxed I’ve got less pain and stiffness – massage helps that way because it helps you relax a bit too – there’s a definite link between stress and ill-health and pain.”

Yep. As services go, it’s a good ‘un. The hope here is to do to therapeutic care what we’ve done to skin camouflage, directing it towards real crisis and vulnerable people, delivering it in a range of placements such as prisons, crisis centres, carers’ groups, palliative care homes, homeless shelters, refugee and asylum seeker peer groups and so on. That’s the hope. I would say ‘watch this space’ but that would only build expectation of another blog entry coming your way.

And to bring a close to the pool car pong saga, the current status: mountain fresh. Quite a victory.

Image: © Lloyd Sturdy

Today we’ve got a guest post from our editorial manager, Charles Williams, who’s been involved in a project looking at the stigma that still surrounds HIV.

We’ve launched a video today starring Konnie, in the run-up to World AIDS Day on 1 December, asking the question: Would you kiss Konnie Huq if she had HIV?

We commissioned a survey recently, which is cited in the video, of 16-25-year-olds in the UK. It found that while 85 per cent of respondents knew you couldn’t catch HIV from a kiss, 69 per cent still wouldn’t be willing to kiss someone who was HIV positive.

It’s not just about close contact like kissing – the trend is the same for more casual contact. For example, 96 per cent of people surveyed know you can’t get HIV from sharing a meal with someone who is HIV positive – but 44 per cent still wouldn’t want to buy food from a shopkeeper with HIV. And 92 per cent know you can’t become infected by sharing a cup with someone who is HIV positive – but 22 per cent wouldn’t even be willing to remain friends with someone with HIV.

The statistics seem pretty shocking, but think about it – can you honestly say the idea wouldn’t give you pause? You’d have no doubts about what you were doing being safe? I don’t even know if I can honestly say that under all circumstances and I’m well informed and (I hope) a basically nice person!

Stigma is a deep-rooted, emotional thing and I don’t think people who stigmatise others are necessarily bad or even always ignorant. But it’s about matching up what you know about things with how you feel about them, challenging your own emotional responses and making sure you’re not ostracising or causing hurt to people for no logical reason.

That’s what we’re hoping to achieve with this video – to make people think a little harder about how they would act in a situation and why they’d do it.

Find out more about the British Red Cross’ work on HIV

Fact sheet about HIV from NHS Choices

Having recently completed a one-day British Red Cross first aid course, I was fascinated to read about the controversy surrounding the kiss of life in The Daily Mail, Mirror and Metro.

Apparently, an Arizona university study has called into question whether the kiss of life, used in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) , is necessary when treating a cardiac arrest.

Currently, the CPR we teach involves giving 30 quick chest compressions followed by two rescue breaths. However, according to the study, the breaths interrupt crucial time spent doing the chest compressions.

Naturally, being one of the world’s largest first aid training providers, we have our finger on the pulse of the latest scientific research and welcome anything that improves the effectiveness of first aid.

As I learnt recently during my training, rescue breaths can be very effective in some circumstances (such as after choking or drowning incidents). However, chest compressions are the more important component generally - that’s why UK guidelines make provision for people just doing compressions. This is a good thing, as we know that CPR is the procedure the public is most concerned about carrying out.

Image © Jonathan Banks

For the past six weeks or so, we’ve been recording interviews with our logistics experts who are in Indonesia. They’re making sure the thousands of relief items are well organised when they arrive in the earthquake zone so they can be promptly sent out to the survivors who need them. 

This week, team leader Dan Sanger tells us how the team has managed to reach 3,500 families in two days with essential items like tarpaulins and mosquito nets.

Listen to the interview using the player below (you need to have Adobe Flash Player to listen). You can still support our Asia Pacific Disasters Appeal.

The festive holiday season is fast approaching. I’m sure many lucky people have made plans to escape to far and exotic places. If you are one of those people then let me say…I’m jealous, very jealous.

In preparation, The Observer has been running a travel series called “My crap holiday”. Their readers have been sending in tales of woe about their horrendous holiday experiences. The British Red Cross have teamed up with The Observer to give away a free first aid kit to every lucky reader who has their story published.

Last week, Rachel from London wrote about her (attempted) holiday to Croatia. I have to say the article surprised me and I never knew about travel restrictions for young people. I’ll keep it in mind now though!

If you are travelling abroad, I strongly advise you to bring your own first aid kit and learn how to use it. Also, read up about healthcare abroad on the NHS website so you don’t get caught out.

So as they say, “Happy holidays!”

OK, hands up. Who regularly consults their doctor when they’re feeling ill? Not everyone that’s reading this blog I suspect. I certainly don’t.

There’s one doctor you should always go to when you’re providing first aid – DR ABC. They’ll tell you what to do.

In case you hadn’t guessed, DR ABC isn’t a real doctor. It’s an acronym we tell people to remember on our first aid courses. Here’s what it stands for:

• Danger
• Response
• Airway
• Breathing
• Circulation (or compressions)

First things first, danger. Before treating someone you need to look out for dangers. You don’t want to become a casualty yourself! So if there’s a rampaging bull, staring you down in a field your walking colleague has broken their ankle in, get them (or the bull!) out of the field first. Or just remove the danger in any other scenario.

Next, look for a response. Speak in both their ears. Shake their shoulders. Say you’re there to help. Getting anything back? Good, that’s them responding. Next we need to check their breathing.

To do that, we ensure an open airway by tilting their head back by placing one hand on their forehead and two fingers underneath their chin. You can clear any visible obstructions from the nose or mouth, but don’t go beyond their teeth, or you might lose a digit!

The b stands for breathing. Check how often they’re breathing by looking, listening and feeling for breath on your cheek. At least once in ten seconds? Good. Sure there’s no breath? Start CPR.

C stands for circulation and/or compressions. If they’re not breathing normally, you should be doing 30 compressions as part of CPR. But you should also be mindful of signs of bleeding and problems with the circulatory system (that’ll be another blog post in itself). If there’s an issue there, it can be life threatening.

So why is DR ABC so important? It’s an excellent reference point to come back to for any first aid scenario you face. If you remember your DR ABC, and always check your casualty along with this particularly useful doctor, you’ll be on to a winner.

Image © Patrick Fuller/ ICRC

Karen Young is a 23-year-old volunteer from Scotland. She’s spending a year in Armenia as part of the British Red Cross’ international youth volunteering programme.

Throughout the year, she’ll be sending us updates about what it’s like to volunteer in Armenia. This is her first post.

“Where on earth is Armenia?” That was the first question that most of my friends and family asked when I told them I was going to volunteer with the Armenian Red Cross for a year.

The second was usually “Will you have to wear a headscarf?” Now I’m here, I’m shocked by how little people in the UK (myself included) know about this area of the world. When I told people where Armenia is in the world, they all assumed it was a Muslim country whereas, in actual fact, it was the first official Christian country and, although some women cover their heads in church, it is not usual for them to do so in everyday life. 

But, in all honesty, before I applied for this placement, the only thing I knew about Armenia was that it’s near Turkey – not exactly what you’d call an extensive pool of knowledge! 

This whole thing started with an email sent round young Red Cross volunteers in the UK asking for volunteers who wanted to go to Armenia. I’m not entirely sure what prompted me to apply, but I did, and five months later here I am – a fully fledged member of the Armenian Red Cross youth department.

Mainly I’m helping with existing programmes, but we also get to set up some new ones, which is all very exciting! The main projects are the Smiley Club (for refugee children), HIV prevention, and a psycho-social care programme supporting elderly refugees. However, I’m also getting involved in fundraising, international humanitarian law education, and setting up a human trafficking awareness campaign. Check out all the activities of the Armenian Red Cross on the website - there isn’t room to list them all here! 

I’m also really becoming part of the community here – one of the best things about international volunteering! The office is always buzzing with volunteers; everyone is young and enthusiastic, and extremely dedicated to their projects. It’s inspiring to be around people who are so willing to help – there isn’t enough money at the moment to give them transport money to go to the dormitories where the refugees live, but they still go every week, as well as coming into the office for meetings and training. To be honest, I am having severe guilt attacks about every time I claimed back my £1.20 bus fare in Glasgow! 

I love it here, and am looking forward to getting more and more involved with the work of the youth department and the Armenian Red Cross more generally. If anyone has any tips on how to get the most out of my volunteering experience then let me know – I appreciate any advice I can get!

It’s also really interesting to learn so much about a culture I didn’t have a clue about before we came here. I’m learning Armenian (barev dzez! Duq vontc eq?) and have spent the weekends visiting historical sites and the beautiful Lake Sevan with my new friends. I think that this is the best bit about an opportunity like this – five months ago I knew one fact about this country, now I’ve lived here two months and feel like I am really getting to know Armenia and Armenian culture from the inside.

Day of the Disappeared: Miana’s story