The tale of two friends who look after the health and wellbeing of each other.
Everybody needs a friend. It’s how we get by in the best and worst of times. This video from the Singapore Red Cross, tells the story of 81-year-old De Silva Petiyaga Arther Bernard, one of the 63,000-plus seniors in Singapore who live on their own.
Over the past two years, Singapore Red Cross volunteers have made regular visits to his home as part of the ElderAid programme. “I’m by myself. I’m not giving a sympathy story but it’s true, it’s my life,” says Mr De Silva, who says the visiting volunteers help him monitor his health and improve his nutrition and quality of life. And it’s clear, it means a lot to the volunteers too. “I am very happy to share my joy with him,” says 64-year-old volunteer Agnes Hlaing Hlaing Aye. “Because I can see that when I talk, he laughs…It brightens up his day.”
I am very happy to share my joy with him, because I can see that when I talk, he laughs…It brightens up his day.
Agnes Hlaing Hlaing Aye
It’s the stuff of science fiction: machines that make decisions about who and when to kill. Referred to as “autonomous weapons”, they’re already in use to some degree. But as more sophisticated systems are being developed we wanted to an expert in the field about whether such systems comply with international humanitarian law and what it means for humanity to give machines the power over human life and death.
In this episode, we talk with humanitarian communicator Kathy Mueller who produced our first magazine podcast series, The Wildfire Diaries, about massive wildfires in Northern Canada in 2017. We talk about that series, her many international missions, and the big changes in humanitarian communications since she began with the Canadian Red Cross almost 20 years ago.
In this episode, we talk about the power of storytelling to inform and inspire. “Storytelling is a fundamental aspect of human communication,” says our guest Prodip, a volunteer and multi-media storyteller for the Bangladesh Red Crescent. “It inspires us to be a hero of our own community.” We also speak with one such community hero, Dalal al-Taji, a longtime volunteer and advocate for inclusion of people with disabilities in emergencies response. “In disasters. persons with disabilities sometimes get forgotten.”
Given the high number of accidents on the northern CA-9 highway, the presence of the Guatemalan Red Cross has been a relief for the community of Santo Tomás de Castilla.
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