Red Cross Blogs

Ellie Matthews

This year, we’ve been encouraging you to find bigger and better ways of fundraising for Red Cross Week. Stepping up to the challenge, people across the country came up with unusual, innovative and sometimes downright strange ways to bring in the cash.

Enormous confectionary

Cake sales are always a fundraising stalwart, but one Glasgow bakery reached new sugar highs with a 49 square foot millionaire’s shortbread. The enormous slab of caramel, shortbread and chocolate was produced by McGhee’s Bakery in Glasgow to mark the beginning of Red Cross Week. The giant confection was then sliced into normal sized portions and sold to raise funds.

Big money

In Poundbury, many shops have been displaying a giant gold coin in their windows this week. The oversized currency indicated that these local shops and businesses were lending their support to Red Cross Week. Participating stores encouraged the public to be ‘one in a million’ by donating a pound, or whatever they could afford – small donations quickly add up.

Expansive distances

After six months of hard training, bike enthusiasts Michael Coleby and Joe Greenway set off on an epic journey last Saturday. They are cycling over 1,000 kilometres from Bedworth, via the British Red Cross headquarters in London, to Geneva. Before setting off, Michael said: “It has been a busy few months preparing the logistics of the trip and I am excited about the hard work being put to the test.”

Huge challenges

Janet Meehan, 40, is terrified of heights. So what could motivate her to brave a 10,000 foot fundraising skydive? As a Red Cross delegate, Janet has travelled to crisis zones such as Pakistan and Tunisia. She said: “I’ve seen first hand how the Red Cross responds around the world to bring rapid support in disasters, and I also see every day the good work done here in the local community by the volunteers and staff based at my Reading office.”

Whether you do something big yourself, or get involved in something even bigger, every pound counts. It all adds up to help us make a huge difference, both in the UK and abroad. It’s not too late to get involved in Red Cross Week 2012 – find out what events and collections are coming up near you.

Find out more about fundraising ideas

Read more about how we help people

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Tags: fundraising, red cross week
Posted in Fundraising and events, UK

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This week, people up and down the country are dedicating their time and energy to raising money for the British Red Cross.

These dedicated fundraisers never stop dreaming up imaginative ways to bring in donations – which is just as well, because every penny they bring in is hugely important.

Every year we help people in crisis, both internationally and in the UK. Every pound donated to Red Cross Week is vital in supporting this work.

How your money could help

Perhaps you’re organising a game of office bingo? Sell tickets for 80p apiece and each one is enough to help a child affected by the war in Sierra Leone reintegrate into school. Imagine how many children you could help by getting your whole building involved.

Let’s say you put on a bake sale at your university and charge £2.50 for a slice of your famed marshmallow-topped devil’s food cake. That one slice has raised enough to buy a foil blanket for someone who has survived an emergency in the UK.

If you’re a sporty type, perhaps you’re taking on a challenge for Red Cross Week. Whether running, swimming, cycling or jumping out a plane, just £5 in sponsorship money could feed one critically malnourished child for a week.

Clearing out your cupboards? That old ill-fitting summer dress could sell for £10 in a Red Cross charity shop, enough to train one vulnerable person in the UK to save lives in an emergency. Your unloved frock could mean the difference between life and death.

There are a million ways to get involved this Red Cross Week, and whatever you do – and however much you raise – it’s enough to help someone, somewhere, in crisis.

It’s not too late to get involved in Red Cross Week 2012 – find out how.

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Tags: charity shops, disaster response, Emergencies, fundraising, International, Red Cross Appeal Week, UK
Posted in Fundraising and events, UK

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How far will you go to generate stock for our charity shops this Red Cross Week? Probably not 1,309 metres to the top of a mountain – but that’s just what volunteers and staff from the Aviemore Red Cross shop did.

Last Thursday, the dedicated team took a goods collection box up Cairngorm – Scotland’s sixth highest mountain – to highlight the importance of donations this Red Cross Week.

The stock box was transported to the mountain peak first by funicular railway and then by snowmobile. It now resides 635 metres above sea level in the staff area of the funicular railway station – making it our highest UK stock box by quite a margin.

Donate closer to home

You don’t need to scale a mountain to donate however. There are plenty of places to take your unwanted stuff, both in Aviemore and across the UK. Just drop items off at your nearest charity shop – or get in contact with them to see if a collection service is available.

Anne Marie Rattray, manager of the Aviemore Red Cross shop, explained the idea behind the high-altitude stunt: “By taking a stock box up Cairngorm, we’re hoping to draw attention to Red Cross Week and encourage people to donate goods for sale in our shop.

“We also want to encourage people to Gift Aid their donations, effectively making them worth 25 per cent more and providing even more income to help the Red Cross carry out its important humanitarian work.”

Valuable funds for invaluable work

In the past two years alone, our charity shops have raised over £53 million in sales. This money supports the work of the British Red Cross, helping people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are.

That tablecloth you’ve kept in a dusty draw for years could raise money towards feeding a malnourished child. The harlequin tie you got for your birthday – but for some reason never found the occasion to wear – could help enable us to respond to flooding here in the UK.

You don’t have to be athletic to take the search for stock to new heights this Red Cross Week. Just have a root around in your drawers, under the stairs and on top of your wardrobe for stuff to give us. By donating next week you will help us towards the Red Cross Week goal of raising £1 million.

Read more about Red Cross Week and how to get involved

Find out more about donating to shops

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Tags: charity shops, donate, fundraising, red cross week
Posted in Fundraising and events, UK

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“Aid money only goes into the pockets of rich leaders, despots and tyrants, so why bother donating?” 

Corruption is an issue in some of the countries where the Red Cross works, so it is understandable that donors want to know where their money is going. 

Both in the UK and overseas, we are extremely careful to ensure that your donation reaches the people who need it most. 

The Red Cross operates internationally through a network of Red Cross or Red Crescent National Societies, which deliver aid at a local level. All money donated to British Red Cross emergency appeals stays entirely within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and is used directly to support the people you wanted to help. 

We are used to working in challenging environments, and Red Cross staff and volunteers are always present on the ground to monitor the situation and manage the operation, ensuring aid reaches those who need it most with transparency and accountability – both to those donating funds and to those in need of support. 

“We’ve given billions and billions in aid, why are people still hungry?” 

Part of Africa been suffering food crises for decades, so it’s understandable that people who donated in the 1970s, 80s and 90s want to know why, years later, hunger has not gone away. Why, after millions – perhaps billions – of pounds have been donated to the continent, are they being asked to help again? 

Because – sadly – it is an incredibly complex issue. Droughts are natural and recurring in many areas of Africa, but in recent years the resilience of vulnerable people has decreased, making them less able to cope. High food and fuel prices, displacement and conflict – coupled with underlying poverty and recurrent drought – have added to people’s vulnerability. 

Many communities are trapped in a vicious cycle of food insecurity – not having enough food makes people more susceptible to malnutrition and ill health, and raises the risk of death. Being unwell and lacking sufficient energy makes it harder to make a living and buy or grow food. 

While aid can effectively provide a short-term solution to hunger, long-term programmes to reduce people’s vulnerability are one way to break the cycle. The Red Cross is helping people prepare for – and cope with – droughts and other risks, so that in future their communities will be more resilient to future disasters. 

However, our ability to respond to a crisis is dictated by the amount of money we receive, and when. Often, the money doesn’t start coming in until the tragic stories are splashed all over the papers. 

By the time stories about babies dying of malnutrition hit the news, protecting, recovering and strengthening people’s means of making a living is no longer enough. The crisis reaches a point where only emergency aid can stop people dying. 

In the current crises the Red Cross is working across the African continent, including in Burkina Faso, Mali and Kenya. We are unapologetic about doing whatever it takes to save lives. 

It is terribly sad to see hunger in some African countries happen again and again, but there is no quick fix for such a huge problem. Money donated to us will help stop people suffering in the short term and increase people’s long-term ability to cope. But some of the causes of, and therefore solutions to, these problems are political – the Red Cross cannot end conflict or control food prices. 

Read more about why crises don’t make the news and what we’re doing in west Africa 

“Isn’t this a population problem – shouldn’t people who can’t afford children stop reproducing?” 

Some people say that families in developing countries shouldn’t have so many children if they can’t feed them – why not stop them having kids by promoting birth control? 

While the global population is on the rise, the world’s current hunger problem isn’t due to the number of people on the planet. The world produces enough food to feed everyone – including large families in developing countries – and this is even after the third of it we waste has been thrown away. 

A real issue is poverty: through no fault of their own, many people around the world can’t access the food they need – properly nutritious food – mostly because they cannot afford to buy it, particularly now that food prices have risen to record levels. 

Related to poverty there are other issues – though people may wish for smaller families, they sometimes cannot afford the means to effectively plan them. Furthermore, in some cultures people are expected to have large families, so that children can support parents in their old age. 

One of the best ways to give people control over their lives is to ensure they have access to education and are able to make a living for themselves. Learning about family planning and birth control is part of this process, but certainly not the only part. 

Read more about feeding the world’s population

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Tags: Africa, East Africa, East Africa Food Crisis Appeal, Horn of Africa, Sahel, west Africa, West Africa Food Crisis Appeal
Posted in Emergencies, International

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The International Committee of the Red Cross recorded over 650 such attacks between mid-2008 and late 2010 in 16 nations it examined. In total, 1,834 people were killed or injured in these attacks.

On Monday (24 April), charity heads, academics, and healthcare experts and practitioners from around the world gathered in London to discuss the ICRC’s Healthcare in danger campaign.

As speakers at the conference shared their personal experiences of attacks, it became apparent those who are directly injured or killed are only the first people to be affected.

Devastating effect

Dr. Unni Karunakara, president of Médecins Sans Frontières International, explained how his organisation has had to suspend services in its recently opened maternity hospital in Khost, Afghanistan, after an explosion in the hospital compound last week. Since opening in March, the hospital had already delivered 600 babies.

As Professor Sir Michael Marmot argued in his presentation – citing Afghanistan as an example – lack of security affects both the healthcare system and general levels of health. According to Marmot, while only one in 46,500 women in Europe die during childbirth, the figure in Afghanistan is one in ten.

So you can imagine what happens when a maternity hospital has to close. And this is the affect of just one incident out of the hundreds occurring each year. In insecure regions, people are already extremely vulnerable and the loss of a healthcare facility can be devastating.

Dedicated healthcare volunteers and staff

Direct attacks on buildings, vehicles and staff are the tip of the iceberg – people’s access to healthcare can also be disrupted by administrative obstruction, discrimination and general insecurity.

All this boils down, as Geoff Loane, ICRC UK head of mission, said, to the wounded and sick not being able to get the care they deserve.

Despite the difficulties and dangers, volunteers and staff of many organisations worldwide continue to put risk their lives to save others. This video shows the courage and vulnerability of Libya Red Crescent volunteers working on the front lines to deliver healthcare:

While violence in Libya is no longer so severe, healthcare workers in many countries are still at risk. Despite this, volunteers and staff from the Red Cross and many other agencies continue to put themselves in danger to help vulnerable people access care. For instance, Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers face huge risks daily to support people in areas of unrest.

Find out more about the Healthcare in danger project

Read how we’re helping people in challenging security situations in Syria, Kenya, Niger and Mali

Watch videos of Carolyn Miller, Doctor Vivienne Nathanson, Doctor Unni Karunakara and Professor Sir Andrew Haines, who all spoke at the conference.

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Tags: health care in danger, healthcare workers, International Committee
Posted in Health and social care, International, Volunteering

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