Doing It Tough brochure 2015

WHENEVER

DISASTER STRIKES

Red Cross’ philosophy—we must remain ready to respond wherever and whenever disaster strikes.

We responded when early summer bushfires raged across rural Victoria, the Adelaide Hills in South Australia and Western Australia.

Then a succession of cyclones struck with devastating force across northern Australia, causing extensive damage, storm surges and flooding in central Queensland, northern New South Wales,

$20,000 can help provide practical assistance and emotional support to 200 families who have been evacuated.

north-west Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Again, we were on the ground.

As our emergency services staff and volunteers were still helping

Building on our vast experience and expertise

dozens of Australian communities to recover, disaster struck again

in disaster recovery and mental health

in the Pacific. Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu hardest, leaving a trail of

support we are assisting farmers coping with

utter destruction. Between 50–90% of homes were damaged

the pressures of living with drought.

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Photo: Charles © Lauren Bath

This year’s devastating disaster season has really brought home

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Margaret with eight-day-old baby Nevaeh

or destroyed, leaving many people without shelter, water or basic

at the Dalby evacuation centre following

supplies. Together with our regional network of Red Cross teams,

the floods in her home town in southern

we’ve reached over 12,800 people across 13 islands so far.

Queensland.

(Disaster Cyclone Pam Appeal is now closed.)

Your support this tax time can make sure that whenever and wherever a disaster strikes, Red Cross will be there. With extensive experience in disaster preparedness, response and recovery, Australian Red Cross is able to mobilise hundreds of staff and volunteers to where they are needed most.

Photo: Australian Red Cross/Jack Tran

$30,000 can help Red Cross provide enough basic toiletries, sanitary items for women, towels, nappies and toilet paper for 600 families who have been evacuated from their homes following a flood or cyclone.

$85,000 can help fund an Australian emergency response and recovery operation for three months in a regional centre including outreach visits, undertaking community events, psychological first-aid support and provision of resources and information.

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FINDING HOPE finding

Family

Emmanuel lost his family in the most unimaginable of horrors,

That was the last hope.

and since that day he has lived with the constant ache of loneliness.

[Red Cross] are the only

Emmanuel was a teenage school boy living in the conflict-ravaged

people who can help me:

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) when he witnessed rebels

everyone I was asking was

kill his father, mother, brother and three sisters—just metres from

saying they have no idea.”

where he lay.

In that instant his life changed forever. “I grew up in a hardworking and it was that moment where my life changed dramatically.”

Words can barely describe what must have been almost unbearable suffering. “I was only 14 years of age when my family members were killed, when I witnessed that mass killing. After losing my family I had no one left; I was just like a lonely person,” says Emmanuel, now 32 years old. “You can have everything, but if you have no one to share it with, it's worthless.”

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Photo: Australian Red Cross/Rodney Dekker

family, loving and caring family. But 1996 is when everything erupted,

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$2,500 can help vulnerable children who have been separated from their parents in war, conflict, natural disasters or migration to locate missing family members across 189 countries.

Then in 2014, Emmanuel learnt that Red Cross in Australia could help in his search for his family. Now settled in Australia, Emmanuel stated “That was the last hope. Red Cross are the only people who can help me: everyone I was asking were saying they have no idea.”

Eight months later, out of the blue, came a message that would end that 18-year search. The message was from his aunt—the family were all alive and living in the DRC. Photo: Australian Red Cross/Rodney Dekker

“I couldn't even believe it was true. I was shaken, I was excited, I was confused,” he says. “Even when I spoke to my aunty, she still doesn't believe if it's me because of the way I fled the country; my age at the time and the journey—they all thought that I could have died.”

In times when it gets close

Red Cross’ Tracing Service helps reduce the suffering of families

to giving up hope, Red Cross

all over the world that have been separated by war, conflict, disaster

are there helping and doing

or migration. Tracing is a free service, set up to help people find lost

whatever you possibly can

loved ones, re-establish contact, exchange family news and clarify

to help us.”

the fate of the missing.

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WOMEN SUCCEED WITH WATER Now it’s easy to collect

No mother should have to walk for two hours to get her child a drink

water. We wash our hands

of clean, fresh water. But that’s how life had always been for Jacinta,

before eating. I am happy

a mother of eight children, and the other women in her village.

because there is less

Every day Jacinta made the perilous hour-long journey, along

diarrhoea than before,”

muddy tracks and steep slopes, to protect her children from deadly

says Jacinta.

water-borne diseases. “I used six jerry-cans: four on my back and

Photo: New Zealand Red Cross/Jane Ussher

one on each arm,” says Jacinta. She would repeat the journey twice each day.

Thanks to a Red Cross project which installed a corrugated iron water tank and taps in the village centre, Jacinta’s life is now vastly different. Her children’s health has improved and she has time to work and cultivate a vegetable garden which feeds her family.

Currently 40% of Timorese people lack access to safe water and 75% lack access to sanitation facilities, with 45% of children showing signs of chronic malnourishment.

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$20,000 helps a community of 600 people build their own gravity-fed water system. $20,000 allows 240 households to construct their own pour flush latrines and receive community based health and first aid training from local Red Cross staff and volunteers.

In 2014, an independent ten year evidence-based review of

A child dies every 20

Red Cross water projects in Timor-Leste showed that 86% of toilets

seconds from diseases

and 75% of water systems were still functioning, well above the

caused by poor water

country’s average. The key to our success? Installing high-quality

sanitation…”

wells, pipelines and gravity-fed systems, and engaging the community

United Nations inter-agency UN-Water.

as volunteers to build and maintain them.

We know a child dies every 20 seconds from diseases caused by poor sanitation and hygiene. This tax time you can help women who lives of disease and drudgery.

Your support can ensure we deliver more clean water to communities in Timor-Leste, and train local volunteers to maintain those water systems and act as peer educators to raise community awareness about disease prevention and good hygiene.

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Australian Red Cross/Phil Brown

are doing it tough, like Jacinta with her eight children, to escape their

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THANK YOU We remain committed to being there whenever a disaster strikes, as well as supporting people doing it tough every day of the year. By making a tax deductible donation to Red Cross, you can help us to provide a lifeline for elderly people living alone, reach out to those struggling through mental

Photo: Australian Red Cross/Tim Page

health issues, support young families and more.

Robert Tickner CEO Australian Red Cross

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POWER OF HUMANITY Australian Red Cross is part of the world’s largest humanitarian organisation with millions of volunteers who operate in 189 countries. Red Cross is uniquely positioned as an independent organisation with no political, religious or cultural affiliation.

OUR VISION To improve the lives of vulnerable people in Australia and internationally by mobilising the power of humanity.

OUR MISSION To be a leading humanitarian organisation in Australia, improving the lives of vulnerable people through the programs we deliver and the promotion of humanitarian laws and values.

St Andrew’s House, Level 4, 464 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000 redcross.org.au

Unsplash.com/Chris Sardegna

Please send your donation with the included form or call Nigel Marsden, National Donor Relationship Manager on (02) 9290 8961 or email nmarsden@redcross.org.au.