Credit: Kelsi Doscher/New Zealand Red Cross
JULY 2014 | NEWSLETTER
Hulita Poutele, 68, who sheltered under her house with her five grandchildren when Tropical Cyclone Ian hit her island of Mo’unga’one in January.
MALO ‘AUPITO: THANK YOU
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t has been seven months since Tropical Cyclone Ian struck the Ha’apai island group in Tonga and the recovery continues with the help of materials sent from New Zealand Red Cross. In January of this year, Tropical Cyclone Ian displaced over 2,000 people, including 68-year-old grandmother Hulita Poutele. Hulita lives on the remote Mo’unga’one Island, two hours by boat from Ha’apai. She remembers the storm. “It was a very, very strong wind. The roof blew away and my son said ‘go under the house’. So I went under the house with my six grandchildren. Once we were under the house the walls fell in.”
Leaning on her walking stick, Hulita looks at the concrete slab where her house once stood and describes what it was like in the tiny crawl space under the foundations.
New Zealand Red Cross aid worker Kevin Duignan was deployed to the small island with much needed supplies of shelter kits and tarpaulins, which he used to help the locals patch up their buildings and homes.
“It was very muddy and filled with water. All I could hear was roofing iron blowing around. We didn’t talk – everyone was silent because they were very scared. I was just hoping we could survive.”
The shelter kits are designed to help people make their houses liveable until a more permanent solution can be found. They contain building materials such as tarpaulins, ropes, saws, nails, shovels, machetes and hammers.
Afterwards, Tonga Red Cross staff and volunteers were some of the first people to reach the island from outside. Hulita’s son, Anau Poutele, says he and his mother were very happy when they arrived two days after the cyclone bringing tents, kitchen sets and hygiene kits. Thanks to the support of people like you,
Anau says the shelter kits enabled him to put a roof over his family’s head again. “If it wasn’t for Red Cross we would be severely affected. We are very grateful to Red Cross for their help. It shows they care.”
Credit: Neil Mackenzie/onlinefotos.com
Former Colombian Refugee Daniel Gamboa Salazar with his proud mother Carmenza Salazar.
“NEW LANGUAGE, NEW CULTURE, NEW EVERYTHING”
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ictoria University in Wellington is a long way from his primary school where local terrorists lined up the boys they wanted to take away for fighting.
trying to rent a house. Eventually they were granted refugee status and offered resettlement in New Zealand.
This is the journey of Daniel Gamboa Salazar, a former refugee from conflict-torn Colombia.
Daniel says he had not heard of New Zealand before moving here “I googled it and the first thing that came up was the Christchurch earthquake, so that didn’t look very good.”
Daniel’s mother owned a successful restaurant and like many was forced to pay terrorists money for protection.
But the first thing he noticed about his new country when stepping off the plane was the fresh air.
“One day they came to the restaurant and asked her to keep some guns and she said no,” says Daniel.
“It was a new language, new culture, new everything,” he says. “I decided to take as many opportunities as possible.”
That same day Daniel and his mother fled over the border to Ecuador “We left everything behind,” he says.
After spending their first nine weeks at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, Daniel and his mother moved to Lower Hutt in August 2012. Red Cross helped them to understand Kiwi culture, manage systems and get settled.
The pair thought they would be safe but struggled to find money for food and faced racial discrimination when
Now studying at Victoria University, Daniel recently shared his story at a World Refugee Day (20 June) event to help raise awareness of the 16.7 million refugees around the world who are seeking safety and refuge. “They (Red Cross) have given me a lot and now they come to me asking me to help other refugees. I feel so happy,” Daniel says. People, like Daniel, from refugee backgrounds bring an incredible strength and resilience to New Zealand and contribute their valuable skills and cultures. Red Cross is proud to be the primary provider of refugee resettlement services in New Zealand, assisting with resettlement of around 750 refugees into our communities each year. With support from people like you, we can continue to do so.
THE EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME What would you do if you were forced to flee your home because of war or persecution? There are 51.2 million people around the world forcibly displaced from their homes. To highlight the plight of refugees around the world, Red Cross is running Seeking Sanctuary, New Zealand’s first refugee camp simulation, on 7-8 November 2014 in Auckland. Over a period of 17 hours, representing the 17 years on average some refugees
NEW ZEALAND RED CROSS
spend in refugee camp, participants will flee from a simulated conflict zone, cross a patrolled border and seek shelter in a refugee camp. We invite Project Partners to join us at Seeking Sanctuary or to support the event by telling your friends, family and neighbours about it. Share and shout about it - it is an exciting event for an incredibly important cause. For more information and to register please visit www.seekingsanctuary.org.nz
Credit: Brad Boniface/New Zealand Red Cross
Debi & Sarah reunited at the scene of the accident
12-YEAR-OLD SAVES ACCIDENT VICTIM
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mergencies can happen anywhere – including on the playground, at home or even the walk to school. When they do, basic emergency care can sometimes make the difference between life and death. Sarah’s class had spent a day doing first aid training with Red Cross at the beginning of the year. Just a few weeks after attending one of New Zealand Red Cross’ People Savers courses, Sarah Jensen, a 12-year-old student from Feilding Intermediate, used her new skills in a real-life situation after she heard a distressed cry on the way to school one morning. Investigating the cry, Sarah was shocked to come across the scene of a very nasty bicycle accident. Debi Potten had been cycling to school with her daughter when she crashed her bike into a deep hole and fell off, headfirst onto the concrete.
“She was having trouble breathing,” says Sarah. Sarah says her Red Cross training just ‘kicked in’. She knew the steps she needed to take to help Debi, and calmly went about doing them. Debi was in a great deal of pain and her injuries were sending her into shock so she was glad to have Sarah there reassuring and comforting her. “She responded to questions, so I knew her airways were clear and I moved her leg and kept her still because she said her neck hurt.”
Sarah agrees that it was the training from Red Cross that gave her the confidence to act so quickly and decisively. It is only through the support of kind people like you that programmes like People Savers are helping schoolkids like Sarah and her classmates have access to such vital training.
Fortunately, although the injuries kept her off work for a while, Debi made a full recovery. But as Sarah’s People Savers trainer says:
People Savers is an emergency care course specifically designed for 8 to 12-year-olds, taught by New Zealand Red Cross trainers for free in their schools. Over one day, students learn how to treat broken bones, bleeding, choking, poisons and have fun doing it.
“Who knows how this situation may have panned out if the student involved had not done the course.”
“The course didn’t cost my students anything. But it is worth its weight in gold to give students those skills…it is absolutely invaluable,” says Sarah’s teacher Kat Wills.
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
DISASTER RESPONSE TRAINING
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Credit: Graeme Murray/New Zealand Red Cross
QUICK FACTS Last Year New Zealand Red Cross sent:
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Highly Trained Aid workers to countries in support of missions to help those in crisis and conflict.
Key areas of focus for New Zealand Red Cross Aid Workers HEALTH & FIRST AID DISASTER RESPONSE New Zealand Red Cross National Disaster Response Team prepare for training at the Fire Service national training centre, Rotorua.
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hen disaster strikes in New Zealand, Red Cross is prepared to launch a nationwide specialised team of volunteers to assist the initial and ongoing relief effort. In March of this year, our National Disaster Response Team (NDRT) engaged in realistic exercise training. Their scenario was based on a 6.5 magnitude earthquake 8km deep near Rotorua. Seventy-five volunteers came from all over New Zealand, including members of the Red Cross NDRT, Civil Defence response teams, Fire Service USAR team, Christchurch City Council and representatives from other emergency services. Our teams train for disasters – a need that
after the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes has become crucial to our communities. Emergency management officer Graeme Langford says: “It was about cementing skills learnt to date and creating opportunities for team members to apply those skills in a complex multi-agency disaster event. We were fortunate to have the full backing of the New Zealand Fire Service who not only made their national training centre available to us, but also supplied four of their top Urban Search and Rescue Task Force leaders to provide incident control for the exercise.” New Zealand Red Cross is committed to supporting in times of disaster and is now more prepared than ever to respond with professionalism and compassion.
WATER & SANITATION
SECURITY
RELIEF
LOGISTICS EMERGENCY TELECOMMUNICATIONS DISASTER PREPAREDNESS