My experiences with the American Red Cross

Last summer I had the opportunity to work with the American Red Cross to fulfill my practicum requirements for my master’s program.  I gained great insight as to their overall mission and their role in helping with global public health issues.  I was astonished to hear how much of an impact the Red Cross has and has had for over a century.  The Red Cross is the largest humanitarian network in the world with a presence and activities in almost of country around the world.  It is an excellent example of how a non-profit organization and non-governmental organization can be successful and ever-present in the most dire times that people need them. 

The Red Cross focusses on helping people affected by disasters, supporting members of the military and their family, health and safety education and training, blood collection, processing and distribution to as many as 3,000 medical facilities across the United States, and international relief and development.  In 2012, the Red Cross provided 96,380 overnight stays, 9,159,888 meals and snacks, and 6,594,597 relief items for hurricane and tropical storms in the United States alone and over 155 million people were helped through disaster response, community based programs and vaccination campaigns.  They also were able to vaccinate 1.1 billion children against measles and rubella internationally (Red Cross, 2012).  These numbers are enormous and have had an enormous impact on public health internationally.  What is striking about this organization is that a majority of the work is done by volunteers.  These individuals I have great respect for and look up to as I begin my career in the public health field.  Not only have the volunteers helped the impact of the Red Cross, but their efforts would not be possible without the financial supporting of corporate and individual donors. 

Although my experiences were local and not international, I was still able to gain an appreciation for the work that they are doing globally.  As discussed many times throughout this semester in this course, non-governmental organizations can be just as successful as government sponsored programs.  Their use of partnerships is a great example of what can be done when organizations with different resources come together with one goal in mind:  to prevent and alleviate human suffering. 

I worked locally to develop disaster relief plans for large scale apartment complexes and nursing homes.  I was responsible for developing a plan in case disasters, such as a fire, were to displace a large amount of people at once in a specific area.  I located local resources that would be capable as acting as “canteen” services for affected individuals.  These included many churches and community resources that had space to accommodate basic needs of people.  It was great to be able to form these partnerships for the local Red Cross and hopefully my efforts will be of use in the future.  Although my project was small scale, this is a great example of what the Red Cross is doing nationally to help people around the world.  I greatly advocate for many of you in this class to sign up to be a Red Cross volunteer.  With your interest and knowledge of public health, you all would be great assets to this organization.

 

American Red Cross.  2010 Disaster Response Statistics.  Retrieved from http://www.redcross.org/nj/camden/about-us/disaster-response-statistics.