World Red Cross Day. 150 years. The work of the Sri Lanka Red Cross

World Red Cross Day 2013

150 years ago, an ambitious idea became reality with the establishment of the ICRC and Relief Societies, known today as National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Sri Lanka Red Cross volunteers celebrate 150 years of Red Cross

Shortly afterwards, the first international treaty of modern humanitarian law was adopted.

To mark these cornerstones, we are highlighting the richness of our past and engaging in a global conversation about today’s humanitarian challenges and how to make a real difference for people affected by ongoing and emerging humanitarian crises.

In Sri Lanka we are marking the event by organizing a mini marathon and a fun run in the City of Matara on May 8, 2013 to highlight the work done by the Sri Lanka Red Cross , Under the guidance of Sri Lanka Red Cross Society Chairman Jagath Abeyasighe, in the years past. The event is organized in collaboration with the ICRC in Sri Lanka and the IFRC Sri Lanka Delegation.

A SLRCS  livelihood project in a village near Trincomalee includes micro-credit and many livelihood projects such as fish-drying projects, which has strengthen the community immeasurably.

Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) has an extensive network of volunteers and a branch in each of the 25 districts of the country. It has experience in community-based health activities including first, health promotion, blood donor recruitment and HIV/AIDS.

The role of Red Cross Red Crescent is to support and contribute to strengthen the linkage between communities and health services by facilitating contact when and if needed, provide essential health messages in remote and rural areas, conduct health prevention and promotion activities and to empower people to make informed decisions about their own health. It is to promote healthy life styles and encourage healthy practices and behavior the following diagram shows the relationship between Red Cross Red Crescent and Ministry of Health (including district health services), and the roles of each

SLRCS has been providing health services to the targeted communities through supply of water and sanitation facilities, promoting hygiene, improving psychosocial wellbeing and generating awareness on primary health care issues such as immunization, nutrition, family planning, communicable diseases and also special emphasis to the development of First Aid skills, blood donation camps/drives and HIV/AIDS Programmes.

Many partner national societies like the Japanese Red Cross have supported many community resilience projects. Photo: Bob McKerrow

SLRCS is working very closely with the vulnerable communities in establishing healthy living habits with special reference in bringing down the disease burden of non-communicable diseases. Emergency First Aid programme and provision of mobile health facilities in conflict affected areas and health in emergency programme is also initiated.

CBH is one of the key successful projects for SLRCS in the past covering 17 Districts. The other strong health Programme is the first aid Programme having an island wide coverage both in community first aid as well as general first aid.

HIV prevention project started in two districts covering mainly the neglected estate communities now after achieving its expected results it has expanding in to more districts and wider target groups. One of the key areas for the SLRCS is to strengthen its relationship with PLHIV networks.

First Aid activities are run by the SLRCS since its inception. Emergency First Aid (EFA) services were also initiated to provide prompt and effective First Aid services in conflict-affected districts. SLRCS is now in the process of establishing First aid teams to provide first aid services, rescue and evacuation support in times of emergency, internal violence, natural disasters and other emergencies. SLRCS have now its training curricula in general first aid trainings. SLRCS is in the process of adopting CBHFA new approach to all our community health projects in order to make this approach a success.

Standardized SLRCS is now rapidly scaling up its commercial first aid sector having a more dedicated team both at central and branch level, are also in the process of developing new materials to support this new initiatives.

SLRCS has now build up capacity in addressing psychosocial issues after completing a three year Programme in six Tsunami affected districts, and now planning to utilize the present capacity in conflict affected areas.

In future through its CBHFA programmes and IPA, SLRCS is looking forward to address the emerging health issues such as issues due to global warming, change of demographic pattern, and migration.

The objective of the disaster management programme of SLRCS is to improve community resilience to cope with and manage disasters while continuing to maintain organizational readiness to respond to natural and man made disasters. Overall DM programme focuses on two thematic areas i.e. institutional preparedness for disaster management and Community preparedness for disaster risk reduction. There are 5 types (components) of programmes are implemented under these 2 thematic areas namely institutional preparedness for response, community Based Disaster Risk Management, Early Warning systems, recovery, livelihood and development and development of skilled human resources and SLRCS has established training infrastructure.

The Red Cross Post Conflict Recovery Programme (RC – PCRP) in Sri Lanka has been implemented successfully with the SLRCS since April 2010, having a partnership with IFRC and other Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners.

The programme contributes to the sustainable rehabilitation and reconstruction in the North of Sri Lanka, an area of the country, which remains in great need of development assistance. It primarily supports people who have been displaced due to the conflict and are now resettling.

The programme is an integrated IFRC intervention with overall coordination by IFRC, with the support of bilateral and multilateral partners. The aim is to build 20,000 houses for the people who are returning to the conflict zones.

From 13 July 2012 onwards, the RC PCRP entered a new partnership with the Government of India receiving funding for the repair of 2,800 and construction 14,000 new houses. Through this additional assistance 19,776 families will be provided shelter assistance based on the owner-driven approach utilising direct-beneficiary cash transfer mechanisms helping to empower beneficiaries and improve a sense of community ownership.

Since the inception of the programme, the Kilinochchi and Mulathivu branches of the SLRCS have been re-established, electing their governance and deploying key staff. The evolving RC PCRP has been able to attract youth and professionals of the area helping to re-establish a strong Red Cross volunteer network.

The adverse weather affected many districts in Sri Lanka from November 2010 to February 2011 resulting in mega scale catastrophe. Heavy torrential rain poured down causing floods and landslides shockingly almost all over the country. Initially, the damage was beyond to be assessed as it caused vast environmental and human devastation. The normalcy of the lives was overturned.

In response to this disaster, Sri Lanka Red Cross Society is currently supporting over 60, 000 people with following assistance mainly in Ampara, Anuradhapura, Batticaloa, Matale, Monaragala, Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee and Kegalle districts.

Distribution of 164 two-wheeled tractors (Sifang GN 12) and 1370 tool kits, as a livelihood support assisting 8200 families, through farmer organizations. Valued at LKR 60 million.

92 tractors have already been distributed. Arrangements to distribute another 72 tractors are in process. Shelter grant to 1,285 families (Rs.50, 000/=per family) to repair/rebuild houses. Valued at LKR 70 million

1285 families in all eight districts have received their shelter grants. Livelihood grant (Rs. 30,000 per family) to 2,800 families. In view of uplifting their living conditions, training in tools, equipment and services. Valued at LKR 84 million.

Livelihood grants were disbursed among 2799 families.

Restoring Family links is a core activity of SLRCS, designates by the SLRCS Constitution on Chapter 2 article 6. General objectives and tusks, notes SLRCS to Organize and explore a tracing service in peace time, in time of natural disaster and in case of conflict.

There are needs in our communities for this service.

Auxillary to the Government, the Sri Lanka Red Cross has to work in a coordinated manner with the Government and diplomatic missions. Here is Tissa Abeywickrama DG of SLRCS with badge on left with Indian High Commissioner Ashok Kantha on his right and Minister for Economic Development, Basil Rajapaksa centre,  at the launch of the Indian Housing project. The Indian Government is funding 43,000 owner-driven houses and Red Cross in an implementing partner for 16,800 houses.

One of the first houses completed under the Indian housing project in the North of sri Lanka. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The Geneva Conventions provide the legal basis for tracing and Red Cross Message services offered by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

SLRCS is recognized by the Government of Sri Lanka as having a special role in Tracing and Family Reunion during times of disaster, specifically mentioned in the National Disaster Management Road map under Preparedness and Response Plans of the Emergency Response Networks.

The RFL Services are provided to conflict affected groups, to migrants workers and their family members, to people affected by natural disasters and particularly vulnerable people (children, the elderly and social cases). The SLRCS branches are joining their effort with the national headquarter to carry out activities of restoring family contact to these separated families.

SLRCS Tracing Service is member of the International Red Cross & Red Crescent tracing network and aims to restore family links for vulnerable families who have been separated due to migration, Disaster & conflict.

The tsunami that struck on the 26th December 2004 caused the worst disaster ever in Sri Lanka. The SLRCS and its volunteers, all over the affected districts, were among the first to provide immediate support and relief to victims. Due to the unprecedented magnitude of the catastrophe and the subsequent need to rebuild lives of tens of thousands of people, the SLRCS made a courage commitment to face the challenge. With the support of various RC/RC Movement partners, it rapidly scaled up its capacity to not only give back a home to the victims, but also rebuild their livelihoods in a sustainable manner.

During the project, the Sri Lanka Red Cross managed to rebuild 33,000 houses, 69 hospitals, 20 water and sanitation projects and 12 schools.

Article from Daily News May 8 2013. Photos added by Bob McKerrow IFRC.

Fight on Everest between Sherpas and Western climbers.

Being woken up on a frosty morning at first light by Ang Tharkay (below) with a mug of hot tea at his farm, south of Kathmandu, on 23 April 1975, is a memory that remains vivid in my mind. With a broad smile he handed me the tea, made in the Sherpa manner with tea, sugar and milk boiled together. He greeted me in English and Tibetan. 

                                                  Ang Tharkay (right) with Bob McKerrow

I somehow had a flashback to photos of Eric Shipton in the 1930s and this is how he must have been woken up on his expeditions by the very same man. We had a breakfast of chapati and eggs from his farm. He had risen before day break and had milked cows and goats. Ang Tharkay was about 69 and I twenty seven.

We talked of the great climbers he went on expeditions with: Eric Shipton, Sir Edmund Hillary, Maurice Herzog, Gaston Rebuffat, Lionel Lachnel, Lionel Terray, Cmdr. Kohli and others. You could see he had a soft spot for Shiption and the French expeditions he had been on. 

I was fortunate to know Ang Tharkay, who would be considered Father of the Sherpas. I also knew Tenzing Norgkay  See the articleI wrote on Ang Tharkay

Therefore the fight between a group of Sherpas and a small band of Western climbers high on Everest last week has raised some basic questions about the nature of the Sherpa-climber social contract, and about the culture of Sherpas. Although the term "Sherpa" has long been a part of the popular lexicon, outsiders generally know little about the role they play in Himalayan climbing.

                             Mt. Everest. Taken in 1975 from Kalar Pattar by Bob McKerrow

An article written by Broughton Coburnfor National Geographic News yesterday really sheds light on who the Sherpas are.

The Sherpas are a small ethnic group that share many cultural, racial, and linguistic features with Tibetans, who live to their immediate north. About 3,000 Sherpas reside in the drainage areas immediately below Everest; a population of 20,000 or more live in villages to the south.

Until the early 1950s, no high Himalayan peak in Nepal had ever been climbed—at least by mortals, the Sherpas say. Then, as now, they saw the Himalayan peaks and foothills as the realm of a cavorting pantheon of gods. Presciently, a prominent Sherpa Buddhist lama predicted 80 years ago that much attention would come to be focused on Everest, and that people would "suffer hardship as a result of negative deeds generated in her vicinity." 

The Buddhist lamas, the spiritual leaders of the Sherpa community, say that one's motivation in climbing Everest and the nearby peaks is of key importance. Foreign climbers, when asked why they climb mountains, offer a range of responses: Testing one's limits. Personal achievement. Companionship in a shared challenge. Escape. Fun. Spiritual understanding. One Everest climber admitted that he merely wanted a bullet point on his resume.

By comparison, Sherpas share a rather straightforward motivation: Mountaineering is their livelihood, and they do it to support their families. It's tough, seasonal work—similar to the role of commercial fishing in Alaska for enterprising college students. They approach the task with good cheer, and the pay is exceptional by Nepal's standards (high-altitude Sherpas earn several times the prime minister's monthly salary).

Nonetheless, wives of Sherpas who climb are known to hike to Base Camp to persuade their husbands to give up expedition work.

"Climbing is exciting, but dangerous," a young Sherpa named Lhakpa recently told me. "It's best left to young, single men." Like many high-altitude Sherpas, Lhakpa plans to retire early, build a lodge, and invest in the "bigness"—business—end of climbing and trekking. And as the Incarnate Lama of the Tengboche Monastery pointed out, "You can't eat climbing awards, or numbers of summits." (Read more about National Geographic's 2012 Mount Everest expedition.)

Besides, Buddhists feel that casually placing one's precious human body at mortal risk is irresponsible, especially for a frivolous, recreational pursuit such as climbing. The Tengboche Lama has admitted that he doesn't always feel comfortable offering traditional blessings to foreign expeditions, saying that he's tempted to counsel them to take up other pursuits instead. But most Sherpas, for their part, need the work and the money. As everywhere, pay and profit tend to prevail over religious pursuits, though the latter are a close second.

                                                            The summit of Mount Everest

The Sherpas and the sahibs—the Sherpas' generic, not necessarily deferential, moniker for foreign climbers—share an extremely close relationship. And it's an unusual one, in cross-cultural terms, given that they originate in such different worlds. They have found a near perfect symbiosis on the side of Mount Everest. Each provides for the other what they lack: manpower for the sahibs, money for the Sherpas.

But the dynamic goes beyond this. They each embody the romantic human idealthat each is striving for: The sahibs see the Sherpas as spiritual, grounded, resourceful, self-effacing, and light-hearted. To the Sherpas, the well-educated sahibs have an enviable command of technology and organization. In many ways, they want to become more like each other.

For Sherpas and foreign guides, the job of establishing and fixing a route up Everest can be described as a tense work situation. They toil long hours together or beside each other (or above and below each other—hence the falling shards of ice that initiated the recent scuffle). The stakes are high. They need to establish a safe route over difficult terrain for hundreds of climbers and guided clients.

Briefly put, arguments happen, as they do in most workplaces among sahibs, among Sherpas, and occasionally between Sherpas and sahibs. The Sherpas are fiercely loyal (they are often related to each other), and they have a keen sense of fairness. They are also aware that the anger that naturally develops in such work situations should be tempered with understanding.

The understanding part comes in because the south side of Everest is regarded as a béyül—one of several "hidden valleys" of refuge designated by Padmasambhava, the ninth-century "lotus-born" Buddhist saint, revered by the Sherpas as Guru Rinpoche.

And a full-on deity resides on Mount Everest herself: Miyolangsangma, the "Goddess of Inexhaustible Giving." The mountain is her palace and playground, and Sherpas view climbers and themselves as only partially welcome guests, all of them having arrived without invitation. It is this goddess's power, one Sherpa Buddhist monk said, that has delivered to the Sherpas great bounty—in the form of climbing expeditions and foreign travelers, to begin with.

In 1975 I traveled with fellow New Zealander Murray Jones and we were accompanied by Domalay and Neema, Sherpas from Kunde. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Thus, Everest and her flanks are blessed with spiritual energy, and the Sherpas say that one should behave with reverence when passing through this sacred landscape. Here, the karmic effects of one's actions are magnified, and even impure thoughts are best avoided. When climbing, opportunities for fateful mishaps abound.

The scuffle that occurred at Camp 2 on Everest may have merely been a garden variety of professional jealousy. Simone Moro and Ueli Steck are skilled, professional, thoughtful climbers. And now—after a half-century of struggle, training, and experience—the Sherpas are exactly that too. Eastern-minded Westerners are intersecting with, well, Western-minded Easterners.

During the 1963 American Mount Everest expedition, Sherpas and Americans alike experienced a mutual loss of innocence. Arguments broke out then too—serious ones. And then everyone came to terms and returned to work in a spirit of professionalism and good cheer. It's the Sherpa way: fairness and forgiveness on an equal footing.

So, in the years to come, who will wind up as kings of the mountain? Sahibs or Sherpas? Don't be surprised if the Sherpas abandon the race to the summit altogether, and cede Everest to the designs of the recreation-obsessed sahibs.

The Sherpas have demonstrated a remarkable ability to learn, adapt, and excel. In less than two generations, they have traversed a staggering cultural arc. They have gamely followed the natural progression from noble savage (of romantic proportions) to renaissance men and women. Many have targeted careers as doctors, airline pilots, scientists, and professionals.

Along the way, they have seen the world and found it to be a big place, where there's room for everyone—and no need for fixed ropes. The Sherpas of tomorrow have already embarked on a path toward goals that are bigger than Everest and its squabbles.

Editor's Note: Broughton Coburn contributed a chapter to National Geographic Books' forthcoming The Call of Everest, to be released May 14, and he is the author of the recently released The Vast Unknown: America's First Ascent of Everest, from Crown Publishers.