British Red Cross

Kenya Red Cross health team visits local villagers

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:35:00 -0700

Trucks loaded with medical supplies, water & cholera kits in Haiti

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:30:00 -0700

On Friday 22 October, a convoy of trucks will leave the Red Cross camp in Port au Prince carrying 31,000 litres of clean water, chlorine, and 3 cholera kits capable of treating 3600 people. The kits cover prevention and treatment and include antibiotics; 5000 masks and surgical gloves; 300,000 aquatabs; 2 rolls of plastic sheeting (for use on mattresses) as well as large tents and sleeping mats to increase Saint Marc hospital's capacity.

Image credit: Severine Vanel / IFRC

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Pakistan: distributing emergency goods to 14,000 families a day in Sindh and Punjab

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:08:49 -0700

Sarah Oughton, logistics emergency response unit (ERU), Pakistan:

I escaped the office early this morning to go and see our team of loaders in action. Check out the pics below and see them at work loading one of our trucks with bags of flour, rice and other food items (the trucks out here are the pride and joy of the drivers and are all beautifully and ornately decorated). Even before the heat of day really hits, it’s still a hard and sweaty job filling a 10 tonne truck but the twenty-odd guys tackle it with energy and enthusiasm – even more so when I turn up with the camera!

Our logistics ERU has now ramped up daily distributions of food, household goods and shelter kits to at least 600 families in Sindh province and 800 in Punjab province.

I’m actually off to spend the last couple of days of my mission at our warehouse in Punjab, to help prepare as we hand over to the next rotation of the ERU.

So as I leave Sindh, I just want to tell you about three people whose help I couldn’t have done without during my time here. First of all Mr Ali, wearing a Red Cross cap in the pics below, who is a disaster management officer for the Pakistan Red Crescent and is the man who has been the gateway into the rural communities we are helping. It is only because he has the respect of community chiefs that we are able to work in certain areas we would otherwise be unable to access, due to security concerns.

Then there is Jahanzeb, who works in the office with me and looks after our database, producing the reports that help us track the relief goods coming and going from the warehouse. It sounds simple, but with thousands upon thousands of goods constantly moving through – this is definitely a challenging job!

And finally, there’s Rauf who has been my translator extraordinaire (he speaks five languages!) as well as being the most efficient and effective admin assistant you could hope for.

Below is a pic of me in traditional Pakitani dress (a gift from Rauf’s family). Jahanzeb (left) and Rauf (right) however are wearing traditional English street wear.

I’ve only been here a short while, but I know these guys will continue working hard for months to come, to keep reaching those who have lost everything in the floods.

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Pakistan: another day another distribution

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 11:42:47 -0700

Sarah Oughton, logistics emergency response unit, Pakistan:

Today I met Haja Ahmad Din, 65, who said: “In my whole life I’ve never seen a flood like this one, there was so much water.”

Haja was one of 600 families who received food and other relief items from the Red Cross warehouse in Sindh province today. He couldn’t stop smiling as he gave in his token and collected two wheelbarrows full of goods.

Afterwards, he explained to me how he and his wife had been stranded on the roof of their home with two of their chilren and their families, including 13 grandchildren, for four days. They’re food lasted for only two days and they had no option but to drink the flood water.

Haja said. “At first it was just a little bit of water and we thought it would just go away like usual and then suddenly it got higher and higher. We went up onto our roof and took some food with us and some bags of our belongings. But thieves came and stole the bags.”

“In the end we managed to get away by shouting to someone who brought their boat over to us,” Haja explained. “We stayed in another village for a while but now we have returned to our home in Rehmadulah Chachar village. Part of our house has collapsed and we have only a few good rooms for our large family.

“The tarpaulins and shelter tool kits I received today will be very useful and will help make our living conditions better.

“At my age I have never seen such destruction, but thanks to God we all survived and God bless those that are helping us.”

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Lives on the Line

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:52:26 -0700

14 October 2010 Mass Sanitation ERU Pakistan

You may expect the train to be late when you go to your local train station, what you probably wouldn’t expect is to find 78 families living on the platform and railway lines. This is what we have experienced in the Sindh Province of Pakistan today. 431 people living in homemade shelters and tents deftly constructed on and around the town’s railway station. This is a place of last resort, as all of the schools and other IDP shelters in the area are overflowing with the 2 million flood displaced in this province. The trains are not currently running which means that this group have found refuge on the tracks. But what a meagre refuge it is, with very little shelter from the burning 40 degrees sun. Those people without tents or the plastic sheeting to form tents, shelter under their wooden charpoys beds or the shade of the donkey carts. This community have received some relief items but have very little. In this environment there are of course no latrines, no private washing areas to bathe and very little water.

Working with the volunteers of the Pakistan Red Crescent the BRC mass sanitation team visited the railway station to findings ways to support this community to prevent diarrhoeal disease. The local female volunteers are able to provide hygiene information and knowledge and also distribute soap to each of the 78 families. We will also continue to work here to build at least some temporary latrines so that the people living have a safe and private place to go!

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Mohammed’s story: homeless and hungry after the Pakistan floods

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 05:33:00 -0700

Sarah Oughton, logistics emergency response unit (ERU), Sindh province, Pakistan:

It’s been another crazy day in Sindh province, unlike my cushty 9-5 job in London, this job begins when I wake up and ends when I go to bed and yet the day still doesn’t feel long enough to get it all done!

But the adenaline keeps me going and having the chance to meet some of the people we’re helping yesterday was a real motivator.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I’m out here with our logistics ERU helping to co-ordinate the flow of goods into the country and into a couple of warehouses we have rented. But yesterday, I got to visit the ‘frontlines’ as I accompanied Christobal (one of our delegates who organises distributions of the relief goods) out to a dusty, rural village where we had sent four 10 tonne trucks full of food to give out to 300 households.

As soon as I arrived at the distribution an elderly man said something to me. My Sindhi isn’t that great, but I had a camera slung over my shoulder and it became clear he wanted me to take his photo. So I then followed him through the distribution process and you can see in the pics below how first step for a beneficiary is to register and get a token for their food parcel (names of beneficiaries have been agreed in advance with local community leaders, according to those who are most in need).

The man I was following is called Muhammad Ismail, he wasn’t sure of his age but said he was between 60-70. After receiving his token, he was escorted by a Pakistan Red Crescent volunteer to receive his food. The whole food parcel weighs 116 kg and is made up of 2 bags of wheat, 1 bag of rice, 3 tins of ghee, 1 bag of chick peas, 1 bag of lentils, and 1 bag of sugar, salt and tea.

Two volunteers, using wheelbarrows, then collected Muhammad’s food directly from the trucks and accompanied him to a dropping off point on the road. From here everyone receiving the food parcels has to organise their own transport, such as a motorbike or qingi (motorised rickshaw). With 300 families collecting their food the road was already pretty hectic, but things got really interesting when a heard of cows decided to stampede through the crowd!

While Mohammed was waiting to be picked up with his food parcel, he told me how his life had changed since the floods wiped out his home six weeks ago.

He said: “Everything was destroyed. We woke up in the morning with the water rising around us, we didn’t know it was coming.

“Since then I’ve been living in a camp, but just under the trees, I have no tent or other shelter. Today, is the first time I’ve received any help. But what can we do?

“Before I had cattle but it was all killed in the floods. Now the only income for my large family is from one of my sons who has been finding some daily labour.

“We don’t want to show ourselves as miserable but we have nothing, and don’t expect to get much more help. We really need this food and I’m thankful for it, but we can’t make a home with it.

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“I am very happy for this help from the Red Cross but I think every victim should be helped and there are many more who have received nothing.”

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Increasing Dignity for the Flood Displaced People of Pakistan

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 03:19:00 -0700

11 October 2010. Mass Sanitation ERU, Pakistan

In a camp in southern Pakistan, 500 men, women and children are living under plastic sheeting formed into makeshift tents. They have been living there since their villages flooded more than two months ago. They explain that they have ‘come across the river’ to land at this dry sun baked patch of bare ground. The water washed away their homes and possessions and many more items were lost in the journey across the water to this place. The people do not know when they will return home and say that their villages are still under 2 meters of water.

Working with the volunteers of the Pakistan Red Crescent (PRCS), the mass sanitation emergency response unit (ERU) team visited the camp.Despite the hardships they face the women of the camp are open and friendly to us and invite us in to their tents. It is clear they do not have anything, not even the large wooden and string beds (charpoys) that are central to many homes, no cooking pots and most telling very few animals or livestock.

PRCS is working hard to support the internally displaced persons in the camps and have given relief food and non- food items. The mass sanitation team is working with PRCS to provide some of the basic sanitation to prevent outbreaks of diarrhoea and contribute to the dignity of the people. Currently there are no latrines in the camps and the people have to resort to discreetly, mainly at night walking to the nearby fields to defecate. This is clearly difficult for women and children , unsafe and contributes to spread of diarrhoeal disease.

With the 20 male and female volunteers of PRCS we are working with the community to erect basic latrines and to discuss hygiene promotion – ways of reducing disease in this most difficult of situations. We will also distribute soap to all the households , in this circumstance a life saving device, to support people to be able to wash their clothes, bodies and hands. It is a small response in an emergency situation for people with so many needs, but it just may reduce sickness and diarrhoea, certainly improve the dignity, and may save lives of the young and sick.

Diane Moody - Hygiene Promoter, MSM ERU team, Pakistan

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Distributing food for a month for 300 families in Pakistan

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 03:21:00 -0700

Hi, my name is Sarah and I’m currently working in Sindh province in Pakistan helping with the distribution of food, blankets, tarpaulins and other relief goods to some of the thousands of people affected by this summer’s devastating floods.

Like Kate, whose blogs you can read below, I am working as part of a British Red Cross emergency response unit and we are supporting the Pakistan Red Crescent staff and volunteer as they try to help as many of the affected people as possible.

This is an unprecedented disaster and the numbers are so huge it’s pretty hard to get your head around . The government has reported that 20 million people have been affected – that’s one in eight people here, in the UK it would be roughly a third of the population. In fact, the UN has said the number of people needing help is more than the last three biggest disasters combined – that’s Haiti, the Pakistan earthquake in 2005 and the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004.

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The Pakistan Red Crescent, with support from Red Cross National Societies around the world, is running a massive relief distribution operation from three main areas: Khyber Pakthunkwa (KPK) province in the north, Punjab province, and Sindh province in the south.

I am based in Sindh, where we have two warehouses. My role is to keep track of all the emergency items that are coming and going from our warehouse. In this way, I support Toumas, our warehouse manager, in managing the off-loading and loading of hundreds of tonnes of relief goods.

We then work with the relief delegates who are out and about finding the people affected by the floods and arranging times to distribute the goods to them.

I’ve been here a week now, first I had a briefing in Islamabad and I arrived in Sindh province on Tuesday night. The operation is really ramping up with truckloads of food and other relief items arriving almost every day and the distribution schedule is intensifying as we begin to double our output.

Today I managed to get away from the warehouse where I’ve been based sofar and out to see a distribution with Christobal, one of the relief delegates (the one in the non-Red Cross issue sombrero!).

As I normally work ‘behind the scenes’ it was really something to see the end result of everyone’s efforts (not least the fundraisers back in the UK and all the people who have donated money to our Pakistan Floods Appeal).

The distribution took place in a small, dusty rural village where 300 families (approx 7 people per family) received a month’s supply of food, including wheat flour, rice, ghee, sugar, salt and tea.

I spoke to several people collecting their food parcels today, and I heard some really sad stories. But I also saw smiles. Two months on from the floods, this is the first time these people have received any help. A month’s supply of food is not enough, but it’s a start and I think it brought some hope that they haven’t been completely forgotten.

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Hygiene help for the homeless

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 03:51:00 -0700

The British Red Cross Mass Sanitation team has been in Sindh province for a week now. We are working alongside the Pakistan Red Crescent to provide sanitation facilities and hygiene promotion to the thousands of displaced people who are unable to return to villages and towns that remain submerged in up to two metres of water.

The area we're working in received a massive influx of people and still, two months on from the monsoon rains, nearly every large open space is being used as a camp – the vegetable market, sports stadium, bus stop. And these are the more desirable places – many people have had to pitch makeshift tents on derelict patches of land and by the side of the road.

Conditions in the camps are often terrible, with people having no access to running water, soap or toilets. We have been working with these communities to try to improve the sanitation facilities and promote hygiene practices to help prevent the outbreak of diseases such as severe diarrhoea – often fatal to malnourished children.

So far our Hygiene Promoter has mobilised and trained a team of 18 local volunteers who have been in the camps supporting the distribution of hygiene kits (which include soap, towels and other essentials) and highlighting the importance of good sanitation practices. Alongside this our engineer and local volunteers have worked in searing temperatures to build four large latrines that will provide hundreds of people a safe and discreet means of doing their business.

Already we are seeing an improvement. The people have been very receptive and camps are looking cleaner and safer. But there is a great deal more to be done. Across the Sindh province there are many camps where people haven’t received nearly enough support. In the comings weeks we want to reach as many of these people as possible, as well as helping develop the capacity of the Pakistan Red Crescent to respond to future disasters.

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Picture of a family food kit...

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:06:46 -0700

This is what it looks like - £60, the basics to feed a family of 7 for one month...

Thank you for all your support! It means a lot J

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Ups! (and downs...)

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 08:00:30 -0700

Things have really changed over the past few days, and it really feels as though we have made progress! Over the past week, 1600 food parcels have left Multan, and the same at least in Sukkur. A transport contract has also been secured, so we will have our own fleet of 20 trucks at each warehouse to use each day. The labour force are really starting to know their work, and look after the stock well – ensuring it is stacked neatly (it keeps better, and for ease of counting and distributing) and loaded quickly.

The plan for relief and distribution has been agreed with Arno from Netherlands Red Cross, our logistics team, and Mr Shahzad and colleagues from the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS). We have worked hard to ensure it is realistic but as intense as our current resources can handle – all parties are keen to step up the distributions in the coming weeks! The food goes to 3 different distribution sites which have now all been tested – the Disaster Management Officers from PRCS go to neighbouring villages, give out tokens to each family, and they come to the site the next day to pick up the parcels.

Life is not without challenges though – we have literally just discovered a leak which has destroyed some rice sacks. The plumbing needs some attention urgently... Also, sadly our driver Rafaqat’s father-in-law died on Saturday morning, so he has gone back to Islamabad to be with his family. We are all very sad for him. We have some great friends and colleagues here, people have welcomed us.

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A guest blog from Dean in Sukkur!

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 08:52:55 -0700

A guest blog from Dean – as you know, the team has split covering Multan in the Punjab province, and Sukkur in the Sindh Province, - this is a taste of life in Sukkur! (which seemingly is not dissimilar from Multan!)

Another day in the office.......

Hot, sweaty, dusty, long hours, physical, pressured, constant deadlines & lots of responsibility. Doesn’t sound great does it.

At the end of the day, tired and exhausted but with an unrivalled job satisfaction knowing that 4,200 flood victims in Sindh province received a month’s worth of food today. That will be another 4,200 tomorrow and the next day, and the next......

As the British Red Cross Emergency Logistics Team we are at the front line of providing the handling & transport of all food and non-food items for the Sindh and Punjab provinces. This equates to receiving 116 tonnes of food every 3 days in each province. If you’re sat in front of a computer screen reading this blog, on behalf of all of us in the field we would like to thank everyone that has generously donated to the Red Cross Pakistan Flood Appeal. To put this into perspective, a family ‘food kit’for one month contains: 50 kg flour, 20 kg rice, 12kg chickpeas, 12kg lentils, 15kg ghee, 5kg sugar, 1 kg tea & 1kg of salt and costs around £60.

In addition to food the appeal funding also provides: tents, tarpaulin sheets, blankets, kitchen sets, kerosene stoves, shelter kits, hygiene kits, mosquito nets, buckets, jerry cans and sleeping mats. The distribution of these items is carefully monitored by separate Red Cross ‘Relief’ teams that travel throughout the region to identify the people affected by the floods, ensuring that they receive these basic items until they can begin to rebuild their lives.

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All go in both warehouses!

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 11:39:49 -0700

400 more family food parcels went out today from Multan warehouse, and 3 containers of non food items arrived in Sukker... (hygiene kits, jerry cans, and parts of shelter kits)

The relief team fed back about how their distribution of food items had gone: Luc in dramatic Luxembourgian style said “it was like a ballet!” He was so proud and pleased to have seen the food be distributed successfully. The method used has been “direct distribution.” This is through registration – i.e. the families come the previous day, local people assist, and with the Pakistani Red Crescent, the items are given out, 1 per family. It

ensures that no one gets double measures, and everyone gets something.

Tomorrow, 300 more, totally 1100 families receiving food parcels in 3 days. Slowly, we are building up capacity and numbers!

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Food items arrive in Sukkur, Sindh province

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:53:54 -0700

Today another 300 food parcels went out from Multan, and food items started to arrive in Sukkur for the Sindh province (south) part of the operation...

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Food parcels leaving the warehouse!

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 20:10:27 -0700

Over the Eid holidays – people were very welcoming to us. Eid Mubarak! The Colonel brought his beautiful daughters to come and visit us, with cake and traditional sweets. We also received gifts from Shannan Ali, hand made by his family members. Many thanks to them.

Today is the first day after Eid and we have made great progress! This morning we had Mr Nazir working with us for the first time – he is our new warehouse officer. He has been recommended to us from the Benelux Relief team as he has been working as their driver for the past 4 weeks. He has a lot of experience working with Unicef in the past and will be a great addition to the team. With Kenny in charge, Mr Nazir, and Rafaqat as tally clerk (see man in Red Cross peaked cap,) the warehouse is fast becoming a slick operation!

5 trucks were loaded with wheat, rice, ghee, chickpeas, lentils, tea, sugar, salt... 117kg per family to last one month. It is on the road now, to be delivered tomorrow morning... Inshallah!

It's only 400 hundred families tomorrow, but 700 more in the next few days – then more food and also non-food (jerry cans, tents, blankets, etc) will arrive and the plan for distribution is coming together. This is for Punjab, our colleague Dean will have a similar plan in Sindh...

We also successfully repaired the electricity supply – perhaps not using methods commonly employed, but nonetheless successfull (see photo). I interviewed Danish who will be helping me in the office. Everything that moves in and out is carefully tracked so that we can report back to our donors – so that they know that all the products arrived, and where it ends up. Tomorrow I will start training him. Apparently his nickname at university was “Newton” so I think it won’t be long before he’s training me!

Katie-ji Bank is my new name – the –ji is a mark of respect (naturally!) and Bank because I am the finance administrator!

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With thanks to our amazing volunteer Hamza - A guest blog from him!

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:35:29 -0700

Today, a guest blog from our new volunteer Hamza Shafqaat! With huge thanks to him for his help this week, he has been a blog send! J

Pakistan has never seen a disaster of this magnitude in its entire history. Millions of people have lost their homes in the ensuing destruction. It should have earned a swift and prompt response, instead it generated fractured support as no-one could have imagined the enormity of the task that lay ahead. Information came in bits and pieces. It became a call to action for young Pakistanis everywhere, a catalyst for change. I lived in Multan, barely 5 km away from the Chenab River which had caused colossal destruction and forced thousands of families to evacuate their towns and villages.

In order to witness the devastation with our own eyes, and to talk to the families, a small group of my friends and I travelled to a colony where hundreds of families resided in temporary tents. What we saw shattered our hearts. A group of toddlers lay in a wooden cot, as flies swarmed around them. Women spoke of the enormous difficulties they faced in providing the most basic of necessities to their children, such as water. They walked for miles in search of clean water. Those who were situated near the river merely drank the murky water that flowed beside them.

The grief of the families produced an unexpected change within me, as it did for those who had the opportunity to speak to such men and women, and I started searching for potential volunteer opportunities.

Browsing the web, I happened to come across a blog for the British Red Cross. A logistics team had just landed in Multan and was immediately confronted with numerous problems. Noting the obstacles that they were facing, I knew I could help them. I know Multan like the back of my hand, and its citizens are no strangers to me. This was just what I was looking for. I left a comment on the blog, half-expecting to be over-looked. The response was swift and surprising. Within 24 hours I was sitting across from the Logistics team as we discussed how I could be useful.

Clearly, there would be no shortage of difficulties. The obvious language barrier aside, there would be several problems. Multan is an area which is a bit under-developed as compared to cities like Lahore or Islamabad. The resources needed for even a fairly basic task such as securing a warehouse were almost impossible to find. Locating a vacant property to store food items was tricky enough, but then the owner of the property failed to show up, for reasons best known to him. Food items, ready for storage, were expected within three days, causing the search for another warehouse to become more and more desperate. Our frantic efforts to secure a warehouse quickly bore fruit. Even though the warehouse’s current occupants were a cow, lots of clucking chickens, and an abandoned tut-tut, we were reasonably happy that the food-items could be stored now.

The initial settling in was complicated enough, but then the efforts of the team were being hampered by reports of security threats. They were advised to move with an armed convoy or a security-guard and be cautious about their movements. Since the Red Cross are a humanitarian organisation, it is always unacceptable for them to move with weapons.

The eerily empty warehouse has now completely transformed! It’s being filled with both food and non-food items as we speak. That’s not to say there aren’t mishaps. The day before, a truck accidently dropped half of its items off at the wrong warehouse! However, the truck was quickly re-loaded and brought to our warehouse, and luckily, no items were misplaced. Attempts at organization amidst this confusion are gradually beginning to work.

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Kitchen sets and jerry cans have arrived!

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:12:52 -0700

Finally we have some stock! It was great to get the local labour in, and see how quickly they can off load a container... it was pretty slow in the heat of the day, but after it cooled down (still well into the 30s) it started to come together well, and you can see the team bonded!

A good practice for the arrival of food tomorrow. First we have to find some plastic sheeting for the floor – pallets have been very hard to come by. Then we have to get the food checked before it is off loaded (to ensure it doesn’t poison anybody!) but with any luck, we will have some food to distribute very soon!

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This says it all!

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:31:25 -0700

Donkey Tipper Truck export 1Mb.wmv Watch on Posterous

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Goods arriving tomorrow at 5am!

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 11:44:30 -0700

We went to the Multan warehouse today, which we are renting from Muhammad Anwar and Sons. Lots of excellent work has happened over the past 2 days, and the site is looking great – see pictures. Good news as three 40 foot container trucks are arriving tomorrow at 5am! Also, as we are expecting many deliveries and collections over the coming weeks and months, Mr Anwar has offered us some additional space free of charge. His son Haseeb said that as we have left our country to come and help in their country, this space is their contribution. This extra warehouse we call Mr Mango’s – due to it’s former use! It is great to have the family’s support.

The Pakistan Red Crescent representatives also joined us, as everything we do is with their help.

Also, we have secured local labour to help us unload the trucks tomorrow morning, and had a security meeting this evening. Some of our teams today were asked to take a police escort. As the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, this is not something we do – the symbol is one which means “don’t shoot” in 186 languages, we cannot be escorted by armed police. However, security of the delegates is of utmost importance, so we need to find ways to work together.

We are looking forward to stock arriving tomorrow!

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Getting ready for arrival of food items...

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 07:49:39 -0700

We now have signed warehouses in Sukkur and Multan which is a relief as food items are in Islamabad soon to make their way to us, and non food items are in Karachi on their way too! As you saw, the Multan warehouse needed some work before we can put food in there, which is being done as quickly as possible – despite a big dust storm this afternoon – see photos. This translated into torrential rain in the city centre. Otherwise, we attended a big co-ordination meeting this morning with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society to ensure that everyone is working together in an effective way.

We had a very important meeting yesterday with the relief (distribution team) about how these food items will be given out most efficiently for everyone – there are many access and security issues to consider and learn from.

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