Fiji Red Cross Society Essay

Nearly 9,000 individuals have been forced from their homes by heavy rains and flooding in the western and central divisions of Fiji’s main island of Viti Levu. According to weather officials, more major storms are set to impact the Pacific Islands. Five people have already lost their lives, with two additional unconfirmed fatalities, and thousands more have sought safety in more than 100 evacuation centres on Viti Levu. The Fiji Red Cross Society has played a vital role in planning for and meeting the humanitarian needs of many of those displaced during this emergency. â€Å"The Fiji Red Cross Society has taken a proactive role in monitoring this dangerous situation and providing the necessary assistance to affected populations,† says the society’s disaster coordinator Vuli Gauna. â€Å"Assessments are underway, and we’ve already sent our emergency response teams into impacted communities with essential relief supplies for families most affected by the floods. If more assistance is needed, we stand ready to help.† Emergency teams In the coming days, distributions of relief supplies will likely include clothing, cooking items, eating utensils, water collection containers, and tools for temporary shelter such as tarpaulins. The Fiji Red Cross Society has 19 pre-positioned containers ready for distributions of emergency items. â€Å"We work as an important part of a mandated coordinated disaster response network in Fiji,† says Fiji Red Cross Society director general Alison Cupit. â€Å"We are based in communities throughout the islands and our volunteers work with the government and other partners on both preparedness and response to significant disasters. This collaboration is an essential component of our ability to serve those who need our help.† In a demonstration of their focus on preparedness, Fiji Red Cross Society volunteers began encouraging families to heed evacuation warnings as early as 8 January, two days before the flooding began, and disaster relief experts have been supporting emergency response activities for the past five days. Relief programme Fiji Red Cross emergency response teams are conducting damage assessments which will inform specific elements of their ongoing relief programme. The society’s branch office in Ba has been serving as a temporary evacuation centre and Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers have provided support to families forced them to leave their homes in other communities as well. Warning Fiji residents about the impact of additional storms, Gauna stresses: â€Å"We have seen this past weekend what bad flooding can do, so let’s learn from this and prepare ourselves for what’s coming. Prepare for yourself an emergency pack that contains canned food, dry clothes, warm blankets, a first aid kit, and water to last you two days. These things can save your life. 0 0 0 6A Fiji Red Cross four wheel drive ambulance makes its way along muddy roads to the village of Wainibuka. (p18856) (Fiji Red Cross Society) Jason Smith, IFRC, Asia Pacific zone Nearly 9,000 individuals have been forced from their homes by heavy rains and flooding in the western and central divisions of Fiji’s main island of Viti Levu. According to weather officials, more major storms are set to impact the Pacific Islands. Five people have already lost their lives, with two additional unconfirmed fatalities, and thousands more have sought safety in more than 100 evacuation centres on Viti Levu. The Fiji Red Cross Society has played a vital role in planning for and meeting the humanitarian needs of many of those displaced during this emergency. â€Å"The Fiji Red Cross Society has taken a proactive role in monitoring this dangerous situation and providing the necessary assistance to affected populations,† says the society’s disaster coordinator Vuli Gauna. â€Å"Assessments are underway, and we’ve already sent our emergency response teams into impacted communities with essential relief supplies for families most affected by the floods. If more assistance is needed, we stand ready to help.† Emergency teams In the coming days, distributions of relief supplies will likely include clothing, cooking items, eating utensils, water collection containers, and tools for temporary shelter such as tarpaulins etc.The Fiji Red Cross Society has 19 pre-positioned containers ready for distributions of emergency items. â€Å"We work as an important part of a mandated coordinated disaster response network in Fiji,† says Fiji Red Cross Society director general Alison Cupit. â€Å"We are based in communities throughout the islands and our volunteers work with the government and other partners on both preparedness and response to significant disasters. This collaboration is an essential component of our ability to serve those who need our help.† Especially the families in the western division of Fiji â€Å"Viti Levu†. women’s crisis centre society. Our next subject or topic we’ll be talkin about is on â€Å"womens crisis centre†. womens crisis centre is a society which is there to help you womens only with anything that makes you feel offended or makes you feel that it is a crisis.Even if it is a lilttle thing? and it makes you feel offended they will try their best to make you feel safe,secured and supported . what makes you feel unsafe in this world? what makes you scared and unsecured? is it the looks of men? sound of their voice? movement of their body? the way they touch you? even if it is a small thing and it makes you feel unsafe â€Å"Fiji’s Women’s Crisis Centre† fiji red cross society Beauty queen of only eighteen She had some trouble with herself He was always there to help her She always belonged to someone else I drove for miles and miles And wound up at your door I’ve had you so many times but somehow I want more I don’t mind spending everyday Out on your corner in the pouring rain Look for the girl with the broken smile Ask her if she wants to stay awhile And she will be loved She will be loved Tap on my window knock on my door I want to make you feel beautiful I know I tend to get so insecure It doesn’t matter anymore It’s not always rainbows and butterflies It’s compromise that moves us along, yeah My heart is full and my door’s always open You can come anytime you want I don’t mind spending everyday Out on your corner in the pouring rain Look for the girl with the broken smile Ask her if she wants to stay awhile And she will be loved And she will be loved And she will be loved And she will be loved I know where you hide Alone in your car Know all of the things that make you who you are I know that goodbye means nothing at all Comes back and begs me to catch her every time she falls Tap on my window knock on my door I want to make you feel beautiful I don’t mind spending everyday Out on your corner in the pouring rain Look for the girl with the broken smile Ask her if she wants to stay awhile And she will be loved And she will be loved And she will be loved And she will be loved [in the background] Please don’t try so hard to say goodbye Please don’t try so hard to say goodbye Yeah [softly] I don’t mind spending everyday Out on your corner in the pouring rain Try so hard to say goodbyeTop of Form Bottom of Form ————————————————- Top of Form Enter artist/album/so Shorty get down, good Lord Baby got them open up all over town Strictly biz she don’t play around Cover much ground, got game by the pound Getting paid is a forte Each and every day true player way I can’t get her outta my mind I think about the girl all the time I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up Baby I like the way you work it, No diggity, I got to bag it up Baby, I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up Baby I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up Babe I like the way you work it No diggity, I got to bag it up My Worst Nightmare By Dream Healer Weeouw alk again, how to cope with day-to-day life while carrying around a gaping hole and the ridiculously heavy weight of a broken heart. Never had my faith brought up so many questions, yet at the same time become all I had. Learning to walk again seemed an impossible task. What do you do when the bottom falls out of your life? When you’re left alone and your heart has been smashed to pieces? â€Å"Guard your heart† we’re warned for good reason – when your heart is in complete brokenness, life is beyond difficult. But this wasn’t anything I could have guarded against. My husband, my best friend, gone. Everything changed for the worse. I wanted to run away but I had nowhere to run to where my grief would not follow. I didn’t believe I could ever feel any better. I knew hope that I would one day be in heaven, but had little hope of any day until then being any easier than the complete desperation I knew. God’s promise to be â€Å"close to the broken-hearted’ got me through the day, but His promise to â€Å"heal the broken-hearted† was something I’d have to wait for heaven for – wasn’t it? Every morning I’d wake again to the reality that he wasn’t there. It wasn’t just a bad dream. â€Å"God, you’re going to have to help me through today,† I’d whisper through the tears. Every night when I fell into bed at a ridiculous hour, I would soak my pillow with more tears. The day may have been agony, but God had been there. â€Å"You don’t deserve this,† said a friend. The words hit me. Just as I hadn’t done anything to deserve the beauty of my relationship with Ems, neither was this about what I did or didn’t deserve. From the start I knew that, horrendous as it was, this must be about something much bigger than us. Asking â€Å"why?† was a futile waste of energy but knowing that there was an answer, even if I didn’t know it, gave me peace and purpose. The strength that would be mine as time went on wasn’t through any training of my own but through the tear-stained surrender each morning. Living one day at a time, I would slowly see glimmers of purpose as God allowed my brokenness to reach out to others. Though a world away from life before, once that purpose became more important than my comfort, I would learn to live again. Not even the grave could conquer my experience of knowing what it is to love and be loved. And now I know that, like in the back of that campervan on that beautiful day, my eyes can again well up with the anticipation of a brighter day and the adventure ahead. Watch this video of Ruthie sharing her story at our event at Momentum 2012: We found God in a hopeless place. In April this year I moved from London to Cornwall which has been a dream of mine for years. I can’t emphasise enough how huge this was for me. I was happier than I ever thought possible. I kept pinching myself because I couldn’t believe it had happened. I had handed in my notice at work and was longing for the day when I didn’t have to manage stressful IT projects which I was finding more and more soul destroying. Finally I was to have the life of my dreams, living in Cornwall with a fulfilling job and a little dog to take for walks on the beach – bliss. I had to move with my 81 year old Dad as I had been living with him for 5 years since Mum died, but he was all for it, looking forward to seeing out his life by the sea and the house we bought had a lovely sea view. My only child, my son Toby who was 23 had been living with us for the past year, and we gave him the option to come with us but all his friends were in Cambridge where he had attended University so he went to lodge with a friend and I said I would pay his rent for 6 months until he found a job and could stand on his own two feet. I felt this was a chance for him to finally be independent and make a life of his own. But then it all came crashing down and I still can’t quite take it in. On Sunday July 10th a young policeman knocked on my door at precisely 10 p.m. I know the time as a movie ‘Marley and Me’ had just finished and I was watching the highlights of the British Grand Prix. It was just like a scene from a TV programme where they tell you to sit down and in that moment you know your life will never be the same again. He told me that my beautiful 23 year old son was dead, and in the next sentence he added that he had taken his own life. I didn’t fall to the floor in hysterics as I would have thought. I just immediately went into shock and had to go and tell my Dad upstairs who thought I was so upset because of the end of Marley and Me, where the dog dies. I was pacing up and down muttering and putting the kettle on just in shock. But not once did I scream or cry or break down and I kept commenting on the fact. I kept asking this young policeman why I wasn’t on the floor sobbing. The next 3 weeks I just got on with seeing my son’s body, meeting his friends, arranging his funeral, having an endoscopy, going to the dentist, having the chimney swept, driving from Cornwall to Cambridge and back again twice. How did I do that?. I bought a puppy as I was so scared that if I didn’t have anything to live for when I got back that I would just walk out into the sea and end it all. It is the ultimate irony that suicide can cause suicidal thoughts for the loved ones left behind, where there never had been any before. Then on August 2nd I took my Dad for a routine check up and was told in the hospital waiting room that he had a tumour in his bladder and that it was cancerous. This can’t be happening I thought but it was. So now it is December 7th and Dad is gone too and I am all alone. Dad died on November 19th, I had to go to my son’s inquest on November 25th and hear how he had been found in a field with a bag over his head, then arrange my Dad’s funeral. So that is all behind me but what does it mean for me now. How do I process all this and get on with my life. Some days it is all just too huge and I feel scared. Other days I just get up, take the dog out, have lunch and go about my day and feel numb, devoid of any emotion. I am scared that if I let the emotion in it will devour me and there will be nothing left. Everyone keeps telling me how brave I am, how amazing I am, how strong I am? Am I? I just think I get up every day and breath in and out until it is time to go to bed. What other option do I have? So this blog will chart my journey into the unknown. How does a 55 year old woman, alone with no parents, no children, no partner rebuild her life and find meaning and purpose out of loss and tragedy. Watch this space.