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Cathy Ayer is part of a British Red Cross team in Haiti helping improve sanitation for earthquake survivors. She sent back this story on some of the more unusual ways they’ve found to make toilets fun.

Clowns. Funny guys that fall over a lot. Baggy pants. Little tricycles. Honking. More likely to be found in a circus than a camp for earthquake affected people. That was my experience of clowns until this morning when I attended a Red Cross hygiene promotion session in Automeca camp in Port Au Prince.

Automeca camp is currently home to approximately 10,000 people, densely populated in the centre of town with ramshshackle shelters squeezed tightly together. The British Red Cross sanitation team has been working in this camp for over 4 weeks for people made homeless by the earthquake. We have erected latrines and hand washing facilities so that people now have a safe and secure place to go to the loo. We have also undertaken a large hygiene promotion campaign with the residents of the camp. Hygiene promotion is all about delivering essential messages on how to maintain good hygiene to keep you and your family healthy, such as correct use of latrines, hand washing and storage of water. These things are absolutely vital…but is talking about going to the toilet sexy?

This is why hygiene promoters have to be extremely creative. They have to get the key messages out in such a way that it is interesting, engaging, clear, easily understood and makes people want to tell their friends and practice good hygiene. Today I saw Red Cross volunteers conducting a hygiene promotion session using glitter on people’s hands to demonstrate how harmful bacteria can be spread from person to person if they don’t wash their hands. They taught the people songs about why hygiene is good and everyone joined in singing and clapping their hands!

I then wandered over in to the centre of Automeca camp for the main attraction…the clowns! Liz, our hygiene promoter had found a group of local, professional performers, living in another camp in Port Au Prince, who have a clown act and she asked if they would join us to speak to the people in Automeca to promote hygiene. I was not sure what to expect…red noses? make up? Twirling bow ties? Instead I found something much more hilarious. A young guy dressed as an old man complete with white beard, an old man dressed as a baby (man size nappy included) and a scruffy clown with comedy breeches.

Hundreds of people gathered to see what was going to happen with these odd individuals. They had a loud speaker, and the girls in the group explained to the audience that they were here with the Red Cross to give them important information on health and hygiene, then the guys launched in to their fast paced comedy Creole routine. The “baby clown” spoke in a high pitched baby voice and had the crowd in hysterical laughter! The old man scolded the baby for not knowing how to use a latrine properly and instead invited the audience to contribute ideas on how it should be done properly. Members of the audience were pulled in to the act and everyone participated in agreeing what was good hygiene and what wasn’t.

Empowering people with the knowledge to keep themselves healthy in very difficult circumstances in these camps is very rewarding but what really touched me was the reaction of the kids to the clowns. Thousands of kids live in these camps across Haiti. Many will have lost parents and guardians, all are vulnerable and the trauma they experienced during the earthquake and since is hard to imagine. A group of hygiene promoting clowns is not going to take away all that trauma but if they can make them smile and laugh and perhaps forget their situation for a short time, it is a wonderful thing.

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Tags: emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, latrines, sanitation, toilets, water and sanitation
Posted in Emergencies, Health and social care

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Karen Young, from Scotland, is spending a year in Armenia as part of a volunteer exchange programme, the international youth volunteering programme.

This is her third post. Her first post is about arriving in Armenia, and her second’s about HIV awareness in the country.

Well, Armenian New Year certainly lives up to its reputation as a long celebration with a ridiculous amount of food! I spent a proper Armenian new year – preparing dolma, hosting and visiting friends and eating more than should be possible! It really was fantastic – every day I visited a different friend’s house and we ate, made toasts and danced (a futile attempt to burn off some of the calories…). It was lovely to experience such an important festival properly, and also to meet everybody’s family and friends and taste yet more fabulous Armenian food.

Unfortunately, the holiday had to end sometime, and on the 11th of January we were all back to work; I felt like I needed a holiday to recover from the holiday! But I’m getting back into the swing of things now and have a lot of exciting new activities to get stuck into.

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Tags: Armenia, elderly people, international, international youth volunteering, refugees, volunteer
Posted in Health and social care

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You’ve seen the pictures on the news: men and women wearing the red cross as they dig survivors out of earthquake rubble. Haitian Red Cross volunteers working alongside experts from around the world to build latrines and sanitation systems.

But there’s someone else the Red Cross does that can be difficult to show in a news story. After disasters, we help families get back in touch with each other.

Imagine all the ways you communicate with your family – email, phone, text, instant message. Now imagine all those systems were down, or busy because everyone else was using them, too. Imagine your computer and phones were buried under several feet of rubble. What would you do?

From our founding 150 years ago, reconnecting families has been one of the most important ways we help conflict and disaster survivors.

In the case of the Haiti earthquake, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) set up a website where survivors could register themselves as safe and well. Families look at the names on the Family Links website in the hopes their loved ones will be there. Volunteers from the Haitian Red Cross have been walking through camps registering people and helping them call family members.

This video shows how it works and ends with one of the most heart-warming images I’ve seen come out of the disaster.

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Tags: emergency response, finding missing family, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, itms, video
Posted in Emergencies

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On Friday, my colleague Sarah wrote about the importance of toilets after a disaster like the Haiti earthquake. David Peppiatt, our international director, is in Haiti now and has sent back a vivid description of why they’re so needed.

Some early reflections at the end of my first day, which was spent mostly at base camp meeting with Red Cross and Red Crescent delegates and then a visit to La Piste camp, where our  mass sanitation emergency response unit is working.

I cannot emphasise enough the enormous scale of this operation. There are 500 Red Cross delegates on the ground with more on their way.  There’s a constant flow of people through base camp coming from Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies around the world..  Base camp infrastructure and coordination are huge tasks alone – can you imagine having to provide tents, food, water and toilets for a few hundred aid workers on the edge of a city of rubble?

Conditions in the camps earthquake survivors are living in are shocking.  Overcrowded.  Filthy.  People sleeping under scraps of plastic, old sheets draped over some precarious frame of wood,  pieces of timber or whatever they have recovered from the rubble.  What struck me most was the human waste scattered throughout the camp.  The stench in places was repulsive.

Our mass sanitation team is working around the clock to dig latrines in the camp. It’s encouraging to see some already up and in use. They’re working to get 100 up by the end of next week.  The public health team went in today to deliver hygiene promotion messages – translated into Creole and posters put up on toilets about washing hands.  They’ve sent out thousands of SMS messages with public health advice and also launched a public health campaign on the radio.

Shelter is proving very problematic. People are extremely vulnerable in these makeshift shelters for long – little protection, unsafe and no dignity. The looming rainy season followed by hurricanes make this a matter of urgency and huge responsibility for the Red Cross as we lead the shelter response in Haiti.

As for the earthquake damage and destruction, words fail to describe what you see. It is like those desperate images of a bombed city where huge swathes have been decimated, destroyed and turned into mountains of rubble and debris.  It will surely take many months, if not years in some places, to clear the damage and debris before the rebuilding can begin.

Follow updates from the mass sanitation team on the British Red Cross international blog.

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Tags: emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, latrines, sanitation, toilets, water and sanitation
Posted in Emergencies

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This fact was brought home to me as I was wandering around the City of London looking for lunch today.

I noticed two guys on stationary bikes outside Cass Business School riding their hearts out while sporting wigs and blasting the best of 80s pop. Two others were standing there with boxes covered with pictures of Haiti.

They’re raising money for the DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal by cycling 250 miles – nearly the distance from London to Newcastle.

Just like the relief effort in Haiti, they’re a multi-national fundraising team. Thomas Newman and Matt Slade are English, and Raphael Gindre and Augustin Renoul are French. Jos Pol and Vinny Coile (who weren’t there when I stopped by) are Dutch and Irish.

They’re all friends from Cass’ football team. They decided to raise money for Haiti because another student at the school is Haitian and she sent round an email asking people to do what they could.

Despite their aching bums, they were thrilled to be on the bikes. “The response from people passing by has been brilliant,” Tom (pictured, right, in the black wig) said. “We were really surprised by how much you can organise in two days when you put your mind to it and get such amazing support.”

Raphael (in the blonde wig) added: “Cass has fed us and given us coffee, Virgin Active let us use the bikes, and the costumes were rented for free.”

You don’t need quads of steel to raise money. If, like me, it’s not muscle that makes your legs big, you can find other fundraising ideas on this blog. Another group of students at Cass organised Hats for Haiti, raising around £1,000 just by asking fellow students to wear a silly hat and make a donation.

If you’ve come up with clever ways of raising money for the appeal, leave a comment below and tell us about it.

Update: Tom emailed me, saying: “In the end we raised around £1,700 simply from the cycle-thon, the hat guys raised nearly £1,500, bringing the total for the DEC to over £3000. Not bad for a day’s cycling!”

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Tags: fundraising ideas, fundraising tips, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, relief
Posted in Emergencies, Fundraising and events

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We teach people life-saving first aid skills in the hope that your community will be able to withstand an emergency or crisis – whether that’s your sister, your best friend, a neighbour, or a stranger.

Our volunteers also provide vital first aid cover at many local events such as football matches, festivals and exhibitions.

Could you help someone in need?

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Image © Anthony Upton/British Red Cross

Transcript:

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Tags: event first aid, first aid course, volunteer
Posted in First aid, Podcasts

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There’s been an outpouring of support for survivors of last week’s earthquake in Haiti from people around the world.

The British Red Cross is part of a family of Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies. There’s a Red Cross or Red Crescent in 186 countries. That means when a disaster happens, local volunteers are almost always among the first responders.

Haitian Red Cross volunteers set up first aid posts right after the earthquake. Their homes may have been destroyed, their families may be missing or dead, but they are still working round the clock to help their communities.

This video shows how the massive family of Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers and staff around the world is supporting them and other earthquake survivors. Above all, all this is only possible through the generous donations that are coming from people around the world.

Image ©  Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross

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Tags: emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, sanitation, video, water and sanitation
Posted in Emergencies

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Clean out your closets and bring your unwanted clothes, shoes, books and other stuff to your local Red Cross shop to help us raise money for Haiti.

From today to Saturday 13 February (inclusive), you can donate things to your local British Red Cross shop, with all money raised from the sales going directly to the DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

When you donate the goods, tell the shop volunteers you want the money to go to Haiti. Other donated goods will continue to be accepted and sold in Red Cross shops with the money going as usual to help vulnerable people in crisis in the UK and overseas.

Find out what kinds of donations our charity shops take

We’ll also have people out collecting money at Tesco stores around the country this weekend.

Image ©  Jonathan Banks/British Red Cross

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Tags: charity shops, earthquake, Haiti, Haiti earthquake
Posted in Emergencies, Fundraising and events

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