Make your wheelchair the reason you’re fit – not the excuse

By Jordan Jarrett-Bryan •
Jordan Jarrett-Bryan plays wheelchair basketball.

Jordan Jarrett-Bryan in action

Jordan Jarrett-Bryan is a former Paralympic GB wheelchair basketball player and sports reporter, Channel 4 News

I struggle to remember a time when I wasn’t active. I’ve always been into sport or at least physical activity, mainly because I’ve always been a hyperactive and competitive person.

Running, jumping, playing football, basketball, rounders: all were things I did daily when I was a boy. It was a huge cause of being an active and healthy young boy, but more importantly a happy boy.

I was nowhere near the fastest in my class at primary school – I remember running made me the happiest, though. As someone with a disability, I can also remember not ever being too conscious about the fact I had an artificial leg.

There may have been times, it may have been uncomfortable, but I refused to not take part in sports.

I don’t use a wheelchair for everyday use, but getting used to one when I first started playing wheelchair basketball was weirdly liberating.

Playing a sport without running and jumping was different, but I was still fast, powerful, moving. Active. It joined two of three most important elements of sports – winning, health and enjoyment.

More

2 comments

Why Bosnia urgently needs our help before winter

By Freya Carr •

In Bosnia, a group of men, who are migrants, asylum seekers and refugees from other countries, stand in a line to enter a Red Cross tent.

When we think of Europe’s refugee crisis, it’s easy to conjure up images of camps in Greece or Northern France. But Bosnia and Herzegovina is grappling with its own migrant crisis that very few people are talking about.

With other countries imposing stricter border controls, Bosnia is now one of the last hopes for refugees and migrants wanting to enter the EU. As a result, more than 23,000 people are thought to have arrived here since the beginning of the year.

Having just spent two weeks in Bosnia’s Una-Sana Canton region, I have seen first-hand the conditions that refugees and migrants living here are facing. Each day I witnessed something more shocking than the last.

More

4 comments

Why a lack of support is putting the most vulnerable at risk of trafficking  

By Naomi Phillips •

A young woman, who could be a survivor of trafficking and modern slavery, sits alone on a staircase outside a building.

Most people know the British Red Cross as an international aid organisation, supporting people across the globe affected by poverty, drought, tsunamis or hurricanes. What few people realise is that we also support victims of trafficking and modern slavery in the UK.

This largely involves providing people with clothing, food and emotional support immediately after they leave exploitation. But over the past year we have also been testing a model of long-term support to counteract the lack of government support available to survivors of trafficking.

Until recently, once someone is recognised by the Home Office as having been trafficked, they were entitled to only 45 days of basic accommodation and financial aid. After this period all support stops, but we know that survivors are still a long way from recovery.

Through our front-line work we see the affect that this lack of support has on people. It can leave them facing poverty, struggling to cope with complex mental health needs and – most worryingly – at risk of falling back into the hands of their traffickers.

More

0 comments

Photographer focuses on a different type of food story: chronic hunger in the Sahel

By •

To mark World Food Day, the British Red Cross partnered with the food photographer Yuki Sugiura. She usually shoots with top chefs on the London food scene such as Yotam Ottolenghi and Thomasina Miers (co-founder of Wahaca).

But this year, Yuki turned her lens on a a crisis that is rarely talked about – chronic hunger in the Sahel, a region of Africa that borders the Sahara. Across the Sahel, 7 million people don’t know where their next meal is coming from and 1.5 million children are acutely malnourished.

This is already one of the already of the driest regions on earth, and temperatures could rise by several degrees by the end of the century. Climate change, environmental degradation, extreme poverty, conflict and growing populations mean that millions are overwhelmed.

But the British Red Cross, with the support of players from the People’s Postcode Lottery, is helping to break the cycle of hunger in the Sahel.

For World Food Day Yuki brought a new perspective to the issue – comparing the two worlds. Her of portraits  food, cookware and portraits from Niger, a country in the Sahel, tell a very different food story from the one she is used to telling.

More

0 comments

MapSwipe 2.0: How a mobile app can help save lives

By The Missing Maps Team •
Three people smile as they work at laptop computers at a mapathon sponsored by Missing Maps.

A Missing Maps mapathon, © Mile91/Ben Langdon

In 2015, MapSwipe began as a solution to a complex question: how do we better identify where communities and people are, allowing mapping to be more efficient and effective?

Using a simple mobile app, volunteers can swipe through a series of satellite images, tapping in areas where they find features.

MapSwipe can be used anywhere, at any time, which provides an easy access point for individuals to contribute to the Missing Maps project without being restricted to their laptop.

More

0 comments

An hour in the life of a charity shop volunteer

By Mellissa Oliver •
British Red Cross charity shop volunteers Sue, Mellissa and Rachel stand with their arms around each other .

British Red Cross charity shop volunteers: Sue, Mellissa (centre) and Rachel© British Red Cross

As a recent volunteer at my local British Red Cross charity shop, I want to share my experience. Above all, I want to encourage others to join me in volunteering for a fantastic cause!

Like many, I work full time so finding the time to volunteer can be challenging.

Fortunately, the British Red Cross is extremely accommodating and there is no minimum commitment time-wise. For example, I volunteered on my lunch hour at my local furniture and electrical shop in Redhill, Surrey.

As a passionate writer, I also blog for the British Red Cross. Through my writing, I help to connect readers to the cause and what the British Red Cross does.

I have always loved writing, and it’s great that I can use my passion to contribute towards something so important.

More

2 comments

Dreams and hard work: refugee journalists share their stories

By Lilah Davidson •
Ahmad accepts his Scottish Refugee Journalism award.

Ahmad accepting his award, © Paul Chappells/British Red Cross

A life lived without a voice is like a bird without wings.

            – Mada, VOICES Ambassador, Glasgow

Refugees know better than anyone what issues they face. Recently, the Refugee Festival Scotland Media Awards gave refugees the chance to celebrate their own experiences in their own words.

Many were members of the VOICES Network, a British Red Cross project that helps refugees speak out for change.

Here are some of their stories.

More

2 comments

How tackling loneliness at its core could reduce the burden on public services

By Zoë Abrams •
A man sits alone at an empty table in his kitchen with a hot drink. He has been helped by the British Red Cross loneliness service.

© Simon Rawles/British Red Cross

Zoë Abrams is Executive Director of Communications at British Red Cross and Co-chair of the Loneliness Action Group

At the Red Cross, we believe that connected communities are most resilient and able to withstand crisis. In these times of political uncertainty, it is positive to see the new civil society minister prioritising building more resilient communities.

With an astonishing one in five people in the UK saying they feel often or always lonely, this is a huge issue. The negative impacts are not only felt by individuals who are lacking meaningful connections, but it also influences the wider health and wellbeing of communities.

Through our leadership of the Loneliness Action Group  – a network of over 50 civil society organisations and businesses  – we’ve worked in partnership with the UK government and held them to account for the commitments they’ve made to tackle this modern epidemic.

It’s in that spirit that we have today published a report on progress made against the government’s loneliness strategy.

More

0 comments