Feb KindRED

FEBRUARY 2014 | NEWSLETTER

YOUR SUPPORT HAS KEPT US BUSY

over

40,000

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ver the past year, people like you have enabled New Zealand Red Cross to continue its mission to help those who need it most.

refugees have been helped by Refugee Services over the last 40 years

Photo: Benoit Carpentier/IFRC

40

Red Cross aid workers worked in 27 countries in support of 50 missions this year

390

DISASTER WELFARE SUPPORT TEAM VOLUNTEERS

$9.3M 100,000

Christchurch Schoolchildren’s Grant is launched in February 2013

RECIPIENTS received grants from New Zealand Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Commission by June 2013

One year on from joining with Refugee Services Aotearoa, New Zealand Red Cross has embraced an exciting new role by helping 750 refugees rebuild their lives in New Zealand. Every day, thousands of people are forced to flee their homes, leaving friends, communities and their lives behind, but thanks to your support, some have a fresh start in New Zealand.

New Zealand Red Cross has continued to support the people of Christchurch by reaching out to young people through the ‘Address the Stress’ website; giving advice and practical solutions to the stress and anxiety disorders that many young people are experiencing due to the ongoing earthquakes. Christchurch schoolchildren have received over $9.3 million in grants from the New Zealand Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Commission, and within four months a decile 2 school in Woolston became the 100,000th recipient of a grant to help our young ones who were affected by the devastating earthquakes. The grant ensures they can continue to learn and grow.

At the heart of Red Cross is our National Programmes that assist the sick, vulnerable and elderly within our community. Your support continues to help our Community Transport programme which is a lifeline for people who need to get to an urgent doctor’s appointment or make a hospital visit but are unable to make it there without your aid. Last year alone, you helped to transport over 17,000 New Zealanders to crucial appointments.

Under the Meals on Wheels programme, Red Cross volunteers delivered 664,182 hot meals to elderly and sick New Zealanders who would have gone hungry otherwise; this was all thanks to the support of people like you.

With your ongoing care and compassion our loved ones and those around us who need it most have a reason to smile. Thank you.

Red Cross Save-a-Mate community trainer Lia Jugo at a Hawke’s Bay high school. Photo: Tim Whittaker.

“IT’S ABOUT EMPOWERING YOUNG PEOPLE”

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ew Zealand, like many other countries, faces a challenge regarding the use of alcohol and other drugs, in particular amongst our young people. To help keep our children safe, New Zealand Red Cross runs a direct response course that focuses on teaching young people to prevent, recognise and respond to alcohol and other drug related emergencies.

Save-a-Mate (SAM) is an interactive course, designed to encourage and empower young people to act in realtime to ‘save a mate’.

SAM is an essential tool for building community resilience and provides teenagers and at-risk adults with practical

and essential knowledge and skills.

SAM teaches 14- to 19-year-olds how to recognise unsafe choices and gives them the confidence needed to respond swiftly with first aid when needed, particularly when they are with their friends or in a situation where quick response is essential and can be the difference between life and death. In the past year, New Zealand Red Cross instructors delivered 274 freeof-charge SAM courses to a total of 4,859 New Zealanders, preparing them with essential skills, such as identifying risk signs and symptoms of drug overdose and how to help save a mate.

As Wellington-based SAM trainer Louise Woodney says, it’s about empowering

First Aid participants

“Double Highly Confident”

4,551 7,978 NEW ZEALAND RED CROSS

Louise believes SAM has the potential to help break intergenerational cycles of substance abuse and quotes one course participant as saying, “I won’t stop taking drugs, but I will be making sure the younger generation won’t be following in my footsteps.”

Courses delivered

NZQA Rated

Members

SAM has also proved it is relevant and effective for other at-risk groups, with the course being delivered to prison inmates in Waikato and Upper Hutt in the past year.

274 4,859

WHAT WE ACHIEVED LAST YEAR

62,047

young people. “We aren’t there to say ‘don’t do it’. They know from the start that they can share their stories honestly and in confidence and that there will be no comeback.”

Volunteers

Volunteer hours

17,196 581 Patients transported

32,000 Monthly donors

Volunteer drivers

8,978 Hospital Service volunteer hours

Ju Nay Say with her two daughters, Su Dah Paw and Denny Poe, and her mother Mu Ku near their new home in Wellington. Photo: Kate McPherson/New Zealand Red Cross.

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ew Zealand Red Cross is committed to assisting people who are in immediate need of protection and have fled their own countries, unable to go back to their homes; people like Ju Nay Say. Ju was less than two years old when her family had to flee their home, cradled in her sister’s arms as they ran through the jungle.

Conflict was raging in Burma. The fighting between the Karen people and the government had turned Ju’s village into a war zone. The family had to travel for seven days and seven nights to reach the relative safety of a refugee camp across the border. Ju spent over 26 years of her

life growing up in the camps, waking up every day to the constant sound of guns and war.

“For 26 years, I wondered every day ‘would it be my last day?’ People think that once someone is in a refugee camp, they are safe. And maybe in some camps, they are. But not in our camp,” remembers Ju. Eventually, Ju, her mother and her two daughters were offered the chance to come to New Zealand to build a new life.

Thanks to the support of New Zealanders, when Ju arrived, she was welcomed by Red Cross who provided her and her family a place to call home. Over the next few months Red Cross volunteers helped the family to settle within New Zealand

95,478

Now Ju is using the opportunities she’s found in New Zealand to follow what she calls her ‘big dream’ – becoming a registered nurse.

She is quick to thank all the people who helped her build her new life, including the volunteers of Red Cross Refugee Services.

“In New Zealand I feel like a human being.

I can do everything,” she says. “I am free, for the first time in my life … I feel like the lucky one.”

Meals delivered

1,033

34,469

People Savers courses delivered

Community Transport volunteer hours

Hospital Service volunteers

“I had everything I needed,” she says.

“Everything was perfect for me. They all worked very hard.”

664,182

Meals on Wheels volunteer hours

219

and enrolled her children in school to receive the education they need.

1,393 Days of service

4,629 Meals on Wheels volunteer drivers

24,462

Number of participants

583 134,090 848 Volunteers

Volunteer hours worked

Refugees supported

KINDRED NEWSLETTER

NATIONAL OFFICE PO Box 12140, Wellington 69 Molesworth Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6144 Phone: 0800 697 277 Email: projectpartners@redcross.org.nz Website: www.redcross.org.nz @NZRedCross

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THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFE TIME

Snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro!

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s a valued Project Partner you are the first to know about this opportunity of a lifetime!

In 2014/15 Red Cross is joining up with Inspired Adventures to run one of two life-changing adventure challenges.

Each challenge is a unique way to further your support and raise much needed funds for New Zealand Red Cross, enabling further aid to vulnerable people, and you will have the time of your life!

Kilimanjaro Imagine standing 5,895 metres up, taking in the panoramic views and feeling the immense sense of achievement at scaling the highest mountain in Africa. Climbing Kilimanjaro is a life-changing experience – one you’ll never forget. The snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro rising above the

plains of East Africa is one of the most evocative sights in the world.

Cambodia Immerse yourself in traditional Cambodian life; fill your senses with the sights, sounds and smells of Asia by discovering and exploring Angor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world.

Cycle through the Cambodian countryside and you will explore hidden jungle temples, sugar-palm plantations, past vivid green rice paddies and small villages, where children run out to greet you, water buffalos wallow in muddy ponds and cows, pigs, chickens and ducks litter the roadside.

Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime experience, please contact us to find out more (call 04 471 4337 or email getfundraising@redcross.org.nz).

TWO HOURS FOR A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE Further your support for vulnerable people and volunteer just two hours of your time to help people in your community. We need you to help make the difference for our annual appeal on 10 March 2014, so mark your diary and contact your local service centre on 0800 RED CROSS. I’ll see you there!