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ICRC News from
Around the Globe
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| New ICRC Film -
Pakistan Floods: Balochistan in Dire Need
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This new three-minute film highlights the security concerns, isolation, and restrictions on the movement of staff in Balochistan, Pakistan, as they try to deliver food, water, shelter, and medicines to flood-affected communities. As floodwaters slowly recede, an estimated 600,000 displaced flood victims are preparing to return to what is left of their homes. The ICRC and the Pakistan Red Crescent Society stand ready.
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Éclats de mémoire (Fragments of Memory) - Memories of ICRC Employees in the Former Yugoslavia, 1991-2001
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The voices in Fragments of Memory are those of delegation employees from the former Yugoslavia who were working for the ICRC during the dark decade of the conflict from 1991 to 2001.
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Our World At War To Open in Miami, Florida |  |
The American Red Cross South Florida Region will be hosting Our World At War in this year's Arts for a Better World show at Art Basel Miami Beach, from December 1 to 5 at Soho Studios, located at NW 22nd Street at 1st Avenue, in the Wynwood Arts District of Miami, Florida.
The exhibit will be open to the public Wednesday, December 1 through Friday, December 3 from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM; Saturday, December 4 from 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM; and Sunday, December 5 (Family Day) from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
An opening celebration will be held at 7:30 PM on November 30; to request an invitation for the opening, visit Arts for a Better World. For more information on events held after Arts for a Better World, please click here.
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The ICRC is an impartial, neutral, and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance. | |
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News and Notes November 2010
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Greetings!
This month the ICRC Regional Delegation for the United States and Canada is focused on health. We begin with several news items from Haiti, starting with the latest on ICRC activities in response to the cholera epidemic followed by a look towards the future for persons with disabilities. Read on to learn more about the ICRC's Special Fund for the Disabled (SFD) and the Healing Hands for Haiti International plans to rebuild. We also take time to interview Andreas Lendorff, member of the SFD board, who has just returned from a visit to Haiti and shares his impressions with us.
We then travel to Afghanistan where the struggle to reach medical care continues. A new selection of photographs from Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar illustrates just how difficult the situation remains today.
Last but not least, we are pleased to announce that the ICRC has a new website.  The design and search capabilities have been improved and we hope that you can find the information you need much more quickly and efficiently. If you have any feedback, feel free to drop a line to our webmaster.
As always, we look forward to your feedback and wish you a pleasant November.
Kind regards,
The ICRC Washington Delegation |
Haiti: ICRC Helps Battle Cholera
 Over 12,000 people have contracted cholera in Haiti since the current epidemic started, and almost 1,000 of them have died. Three weeks after the epidemic started, the illness is continuing to spread, and the situation remains very worrying. The ICRC is particularly concerned about and working to address the epidemic in prisons, which are particularly vulnerable, as inmates live in an enclosed environment. An ICRC team consisting of delegates specialized in prison visits, plus doctors and engineers, is working in the National Prison. In addition, one of the first things the ICRC did when the crisis started was to set up a mobile clinic, in cooperation with the authorities, which enables Haitian doctors to move from prison to prison, supervising the dispensaries and helping to ensure that the rules of hygiene are being respected. For the last three weeks, the ICRC has been at work in the 11 places of detention that are at risk, helping to put in place such preventive measures as the cleaning and disinfection of cells and toilets, the distribution of hygiene articles, and the purification of drinking water. To learn more about ICRC's activities in response to the cholera epidemic in Haiti, click here.
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Haiti: ICRC Special Fund for the Disabled Rebuilds and Rehabilitates
Regular readers of this newsletter know that the ICRC Special Fund for the Disabled (SFD) supports local organizations in 30 countries with financial, material, and technical assistance to provide sustainable care for persons requiring prosthetic or orthotic devices.
 Since 2005, one of the SFD's local partners has been Healing Hands for Haiti International (HHHI). On January 12, 2010, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, destroying HHHI's entire infrastructure, including its building and equipment. The earthquake also caused thousands of injuries, including ones that required amputation. Officials estimated that the earthquake resulted in approximately 1,000 additional amputees, and between 8,000 and 10,000 amputees are currently in need of care.
Today, Haiti's physical rehabilitation needs far exceed its past and present rehabilitation capacity. To address this, the SFD and HHHI are working to build a new HHHI building, prosthetic and orthotic laboratory, and physiotherapy clinic. The two organizations have also devised a five-year plan that will redevelop the center's physical rehabilitation activities and train additional HHHI staff.
 With generous support from the American Red Cross and Norwegian Red Cross, over the next five years, SFD and HHHI will provide prosthetic and/or orthotic rehabilitation services to fit an additional 1,000 persons with devices and to provide 10,000 physiotherapy treatments. The plan also commits resources to improving the quality of patient services and enhancing the long-term functioning of the HHHI center.
Progress on the new building is already underway. Together, the SFD, HHHI, and the ICRC delegation in Haiti will closely follow the implementation of the project so that the building, complete with new equipment and tools, will be finished towards the end of 2011. To support the work of the SFD, please visit its website.
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Interview with Andreas Lendorff, Member of the Board, ICRC Special Fund for the Disabled
 The ICRC Special Fund for the Disabled (SFD) was created in 1983 and is an integral part of the ICRC strategy for physical rehabilitation. The SFD enables the ICRC to provide follow-up physical rehabilitation assistance in countries where ICRC is no longer operational, promoting sustainability, continued provision of services, and return on ICRC's earlier investments.
Andreas Lendorff, Member of the SFD Board, recently traveled to Haiti. Afterward, while in Washington, he took a few moments to answer our questions:
You just returned from Haiti. Tell us about your visit and the current situation there with respect to persons living with disabilities?
 This was my first trip to Haiti and I only spent a few days there, so I'm unable to give a true assessment of the situation. I can tell you that in the physical rehabilitation sector a lot of good work has been done. SFD has been working in Haiti since 2005 with a local partner called Healing Hands for Haiti (HHHI). In the January earthquake, all of HHHI's buildings collapsed. The main purpose of my trip was to take part in a small ceremony and sign a Memorandum of Understanding with HHHI on November 15. We will work together to build a new prosthetic-orthotic workshop and to collaborate on a 5-year plan of rehabilitation activities.
The Haiti project is now a very substantial program for us. Before, our annual budget was about $5 million and now it is $7 million, thanks in part to the support given to SFD from the American Red Cross and Norwegian Red Cross, joint financial supporters of the 5-year SFD-HHHI project in Haiti.
What impressed you most about the planned collaboration with Healing Hands for Haiti International?
 The key word is certainly sustainability. HHHI has been working in Haiti since 1999. It puts emphasis on long-term commitment to the people. As a result, our collaboration is not a one-off project as you can see from our five-year plan of activities. Likewise, HHHI does very high quality work. It has introduced ICRC SFD's polypropylene technology, and we enjoy a very good working relationship with our colleagues. In 2010, during the emergency phase subsequent to the January earthquake, HHHI has been working with other organizations too, like Handicap International, to run a temporary rehabilitation workshop. Despite the challenges, they are doing a very good job. And when the new building is finished by the end of 2011, these activities will move there.
On a 2009 visit to Washington, you mentioned that programs for amputees and disabled people are not at the top of donors' priority list. Has this changed in 2010? What is the outlook for 2011?
Last year I was not very positive about our financial situation, and unfortunately my fears were confirmed when for the first time in many years, SFD could not meet its fundraising goals. We ended the year with a shortfall of $500,000 and had to cut back our budget for 2010. The worldwide financial crisis caught up with us.
This year, we've done a lot of work, and I am cautiously optimistic. I think we will meet our goals and cover our expenditures for 2010. Despite some challenges related to low exchange rates, we are hopeful that donors will respond to the call expressed in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and that some new funds may be available starting in 2011.
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Afghanistan: The Struggle to Reach Medical Care
 Fighting continues to rage throughout Afghanistan between Coalition troops and insurgent forces. The impact on the civilian population is increasingly severe.
Photographer Kate Holt recently traveled with the ICRC to Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar to document how relentless fighting is denying millions of Afghan civilians access to basic health care. The hospital is still treating patients who have suffered other sorts of injuries or contracted disease as an indirect result of the conflict, and who far outnumber patients with weapon-related injuries.
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