AUGUST 2013 | NEWSLETTER
CHILD SAVED AFTER RED CROSS FIRST AID COURSE had learnt lifesaving skills during a Red Cross demonstration in his local village. It was one of the first public sessions given by the Kiribati Red Cross, whose trainers were all trained by New Zealand Red Cross first aid delegates. Teinamam began CPR. “He pumped his chest 30 times then did two breaths,” says Terieta’s grandmother Otobina. “Then he picked him up and put him over his shoulder. Terieta was vomiting and crying but after a while he was OK.”
c Otobina is grateful that her grandson, Terieta, is able to smile again thanks to people like you.
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our-year-old Terieta Jonas lives a stone’s throw away from the ocean, in the village of Bonriki on Kiribati’s main island of Tarawa. He has no memory of the traumatic accident that nearly cost him his life when he was just a year old. His village had gathered for a Mother’s Day celebration, and no one noticed the toddler had wandered off. He was found
face down in a nearby creek, not breathing. Terieta’s neighbour Teinamam, noticed the boy and quickly responded. You can only imagine how terrifying this situation must have been for Teinamam. His heart would have been racing as his mind grasped for a lifesaving response; especially when he realised that the little boy lying lifeless was Terieta.
No grandparent should have to feel this kind of fear, but because of support from people like you, Terieta’s precious life was saved. Otobina says Terieta was afraid of the water for a while after the incident, but he now happily swims in the sea next to his house. He attends the local preschool and wants to be a pilot when he grows up.
Fortunately, just days earlier, Teinamam
150 YEARS OF HUMANITARIAN ACTION – DISASTER EDITION
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his year commemorates 150 years since the official creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). We mark this anniversary with a timeline that reflects the disasters and key events that we have responded to during 150 years of humanitarian action. 17 February 1863 – Creation of the International Committee for the Relief
of Wounded in the Event of War, precursor to the ICRC and the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. 1880s – National Societies begin to expand peacetime action in response to disasters: the Japanese Red Cross Society to the slops of Bandai after its eruption in 1888; the American Red Cross to forest fires, cyclones and floods; the French Red Cross
to floods in Paris and a cholera outbreak in Marseilles. 1906 – The San Francisco earthquake proves the value of American Red Cross-trained personnel during peacetime. The Japanese Red Cross sends US$ 152,000 to help quake victims.