7 News Belize

Red Cross Celebrates Globally, Locally
posted (May 10, 2013)
On Wednesday Red Cross volunteers from around the world joined to celebrate World Red Cross Crescent Day. As a part of the local observance, today the Belize Red Cross held an Open Day inside the Bliss Parking lot – to showcase and educate the public on the purpose they serve. It was all demonstrated by youngsters themselves who played a major role in today's Open Day.





Lily Bowman, Director General of the Belize Red Cross
"Today we are having an awareness fair and it is in celebration of the day that we set aside for World Red Cross day which was Wednesday, 8th May. That day is celebrated all over the world and by all the 188 national societies. It is also the birthday of our founder, Henri Dunant, and so on that day we take the opportunity to let everybody know about the work we do; to invite people to come and join this happy family; to become volunteers and to share in the successes and to also listen to our needs and make a little contribution or to sign up as a volunteer. We also take the opportunity to bring out the school children and teach them a little bit about all the different areas we work in. We have today, the first aid sector, doing some practical techniques, teaching about CPR and first-aid and we also have the HIV and Aids program out here giving good solid facts about HIV and aids to the children; we also have the disaster risk reduction here, of course, very very significant being the month before the season opens; we have games which we are teaching children facts about disaster preparedness and of course we have a little section selling some pastries just to raise a few little coins for our operations and basically just letting everybody know what we do every single day in disaster, out of disaster, in preparedness, in health. We also started working with our youths in violence prevention; that is a new area so we are telling them about all these good things that we do"

Monica Bodden
"Can you speak to us about the importance of letting people know what you guys do on a day to day basis?"

Lily Bowman, Director General of the Belize Red Cross
"It's very very important, as a matter of fact, I get this comment sometimes, 'we never know what the red cross does', but I think people know, they just probably need to be reminded every now and then and so we take opportunities like this, World Red Cross day celelbration to let them know"

This year's World Red Cross Crescent Day was celebrated under the theme "Together for Humanity".

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