Good but unwanted furniture and clothes can’t just end up in the garbage! Some suggestions for recycling:
Neighbouring France
Two charitable French associations will gladly welcome your household items, books, toys and clothes as long as they are in good, working condition. The groups will even schedule a pick up at your home for big pieces such as sofas or refrigerators. The local chapter of Emmaus is near Annemasse, in Cranves-Sales. On the other side of the lake, visit AGCR, 129 rue Tiocan, 01630 Saint Genis Pouilly, +33 4 50 28 20 50.
The Pays de Gex Red Cross, in Prevessin, will also take clothes, children books, toys and tableware but can only receive small furniture (side tables, cribs). No home pick up. These places are also a good resource for buying second-hand items, now that your donation has made room at home!
Switzerland
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The ICRC (International Red Cross) in Geneva and the Libyan Red Cross have begun a three-week radio campaign in Libya to warn the population of the danger of explosive remnants of war. The programme is being launched a day after the Landmine Monitor Report 2011 cautioned that landmine detection work will need to be stepped up in Libya in the wake of several months of fighting.
The ICRC said in Geneva 24 November that billboards, posters and leaflets will back up the campaign, with four radio stations broadcasting the information six times a day.
“The danger exists in different places in Libya, but the campaign is primarily addressing people who are gradually returning to their homes in Sirte and Bani Walid. The heavy fighting which took place until last month left the two cities seriously contaminated by such devices,” the ICRC says in a statement. “The threat to civilians in these urban areas, mainly from small unexploded weapons such as grenades, rockets and mortar shells, is severe,’ says Jennifer Reeves, an ICRC delegate. ‘In Sirte in the past week alone, two children playing with one of these devices and a young man cleaning his damaged house were badly injured. Many people are unaware of the dangers posed by ordnance which may explode at the slightest touch.’ Dozens of civilians have been killed or maimed in the country in similar circumstances in the past month.’”
The ICRC says it has removed some 1,400 unexploded devices in some of the areas worst affected by the hostilities, including Ajdabiya, Misrata and the Nefusa mountains. It has also trained over 140 Libyan Red Crescent volunteers to raise awareness of the threat among the local population.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl in Colombia three weeks ago outraged the country and when Nohora Valentina Munoz was released near the Venezuelan border Monday evening 17 October, the country’s president gave effusive thanks to the Geneva-based International Red Cross (ICRC), which negotiated the child’s freedom.
She and her mother were kidnapped 29 September, en route to the girl’s school. Her mother, the wife of Jorge Enrique Munoz, mayor of the town of Fortul in Arauca, was released the morning of the kidnapping.
It is not clear who took the pair, nor have any of the conditions for the child’s release been given. The ICRC in Geneva does not release details of such negotiations in which it is involved.
El Tempo (Spa) newspaper, which has covered the case heavily reported earlier that 1,800 police set up several search and rescue operations for the girl but that these were called off at the request of the ICRC, in order to allow negotiations to begin.
Palestinian envoy raises ire of Canadian gov’t
Egyptian TV’s interview with Shalit shocks some as exploitation
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It is not being hailed as a gesture with implications for Middle East peace, but there is widespread relief over the release of Israeli prisoner Galid Shalit by Palestine’s Hamas after five years, and 477 Palestinians who have been held for different lengths of time.
Mid-morning Swiss time Shalit’s arrival in Egypt had been confirmed to Israeli authorities, who loaded 477 prisoners onto Red Cross buses, for release to the West Bank and Gaza, according to the Jerusalem Post. They will cross into Egypt, and from there bused to their homes, once Shalit is on Israeli territory. “Schalit will be guarded by soldiers of the Israel Air Force’s 669 unit, who will accompany him until he is home safe in Mitzpe Hila,” the Israeli newspaper reports.
Another 500 Palestinians are scheduled to be released at a later date.
Palestine remains in the news in Canada for an unrelated incident: “Linda Sobeh Ali, the chargé d’affaires of the Palestinian delegation in Ottawa, is just one cut above persona non grata,” reports the Globe & Mail. “The Canadian government called her in for a high-level dressing down, made a formal protest to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and has decided to ‘limit communication’ with her until a replacement arrives.” She upset Ottawa by tweeting a link to a YouTube video of a tearful Palestinian girl who is shouting “with passion, reciting a poem in Arabic, ‘I am Palestinian.’ The English subtitles on the video include a passage where millions are called ‘to a war that raze the injustice and oppression and destroy the Jews.’”
Shalit was interviewed by Egyptian TV before he was transferred to Israel. The 24-year-old appeared short of breath but otherwise healthy and he said he was nervous. Israeli media reported that several officials were shocked at what they saw as “exploitation” by media before he was released to his homeland.
Critically injured French journalist part of 935 rescued Wednesday from Misrata
Update 17:35 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The IOM (International Organization for Migration) and the International Red Cross (ICRC) say the Red Star One, a ship that left Benghazi, in eastern Libya late Tuesday 26 April for Misrata to deliver medical supplies and pick up 1,000 refugees, was forced to wait offshore until Wednesday morning, due to heavy fighting in the area. Reuters reported Wednesday morning that one migrant from Niger was killed by the shelling and up to 20 people reportedly injured.
IOM says in a statement issued Wednesday evening that the ship is safely en route to Benghazi and is expected to land there Thursday morning. “Among the 935 evacuees are 848 Nigeriens and small groups of Sudanese, Egyptians and Tunisians as well as 30 Libyan medical cases and 50 accompanying family members. Also on board are a group of journalists being taken out of Misrata, including a French journalist who had been shot in the neck and now in intensive care.”
Fifth ship with migrants makes it out of Misrata
The ship was making its fifth refugee pickup at the port city. The IOM warns that another 500 are waiting for help near the port and that people in the area say the number may be closer to 1,500 when those who ran from the area, as shelling started, return.
It had been loaded with 160 tons of food and medical supplies, according to the IOM, including two new ambulances to help transport casualties to Misrata’s Ras Touba hospital and from the hospital to the port area for medical evacuation.
A specialized medical team of 11, including personnel from the International Medical Corps, was on board the Red Star One to take care of up to 25 war-wounded, including 4 patients requiring intensive care.
More than 625,000 have fled Libya since March
Wednesday’s statement notes:
“So far, IOM has rescued 5,512 people, the vast majority stranded migrant workers from more than 21 nationalities, including Nigeriens, Bangladeshis, Ghanaians, Nigerians, Egyptians and Tunisians as well as hundreds of Libyans, many of them war-wounded.
From Benghazi, IOM provides the migrants onward land transportation to the Egyptian border at Sallum. Since it began a land evacuation from Benghazi to Sallum on 3 March, IOM has evacuated more than 8,000 migrants from Benghazi to the Egyptian border before taking them to their home countries.
IOM’s humanitarian evacuation programme out of Misrata is funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civilian Protection Office (ECHO), Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), Germany, Ireland and Australia.
Nearly 626,000 people have fled Libya and crossed into Tunisia, Egypt, Niger, Algeria, Chad, and Sudan with some of them putting their lives in great danger to reach the shores of Italy and Malta.”
Two Geneva-based organizations at centre of Libyan aid and evacuation say more funds needed
The UNHCR is appealing for $160 million or the Libyan evacuation. It has to date received $68 million.
The ICRC earlier in April opened an appeal for $24 million for the Libya crisis, mainly for food, water, medical care, sanitation and hygiene, for 100,000 people inside the country and another 100,000 crossing the border into Tunisia. Its director-general, Yves Daccord, is interviewed on the ICRC site about the funding crunch, as state donors are providing less and the needs are growing.
A deadly mudslide swept away at least 10 three-story buildings 5 December in the Bello district of Medellin. Red Cross officials say possibly hundreds may have lost their lives in the mudslide. Officials said seven people had been pulled out alive by the early evening and one body had been recovered, according to Bogotá newspaper, El Tiempo.
Torrential rains in the country have caused landslides and flooding around the country. Red Cross officials say 176 people have lost their lives during this season’s exceptional rains and almost 2,000 buildings have been destroyed.
Links to other sites: Al-Jazeera, Guardian
Students helped senior citizens in bus stops around the city
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Geneva Red Cross honoured the elderly Friday 1 October by sending 200 volunteers, including 100 students from the International School of Geneva, to bus and tram stops throughout the city, to help people over age 65 use public transport more easily.
The goal was not to offer them a one-day service but to raise public awareness of the difficulties older people often face in their daily lives, including getting around.
The Red Cross action was part of a larger undertaking to offer seniors more programmes and opportunities in Geneva, from exercise classes to coffee meetings and courses.
The web site seniors-geneva.ch is in French only but is rich in activities for those over 65.
Small cars for small drivers?
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The driving age in Switzerland should be reduced to age 16 under certain circumstances says the automobile association, the Touring Club Suisse.
Younger drivers should be allowed to get behind the wheel if they are accompanied by an experienced driver and have already passed the theoretical exam, the grouping says, and points out that several German Laender already permit this. The German government lowered the driving age to 17 5 August, according to TSR.
Opposition comes from Road Cross, a mutual aid association of the families of victims of road accidents, who say young people are not mature enough to get behind the wheel and would lack the necessary mental skills. On the other hand, younger drivers pick up the physical skills of maneuvring a vehicle much more quickly than older first-time drivers.
Before the massive flooding in the north of the country in 2010, the Pakistan Red Cross and ICRC have been active in Pakistan in areas where fighting broke out in 2009: Swabi, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. An ICRC delegate interviews a woman in an IDP camp as part of the effort to help her restore contacts with her family (photo: ©2009 ICRC / M Von Bergen)
Update, Reuters video, 10:50 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – The sheer scale of flooding in Pakistan in the past week, and the damage caused by it, is daunting: more than 1,100 people have died, according to official sources, and 2.5 million people have been affected. The International Red Cross (ICRC) and the Pakistan National Red Crescent Society are scrambling to provide emergency relief, with more than 20,000 emergency rations for individuals provided in Balochistan and southern Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), and more en route to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Balochistan.
Infrastructure washed away: delivery extremely difficult
But the scale of the flooding is such that delivering relief aid is extraordinarily difficult, says Geneva-based ICRC.
The death toll reportedly rose to 170 in Kyrgystan Tuesday 15 June, and the number of injured is over 1,200, as ethnic unrest continues. Uzbekistan closed its border. The ICRC (International Red Cross) says that some 80,000 refugees have now fled the area around Osh, in the south of the country. The fighting is the worst since 1990, reports CNN, when clashes killed several hundred people.
UNHCR calls on countries to stop repatriating Haitians
Red Cross offers advice on burying dead
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -The International Red Cross (ICRC) opened a missing person’s site following the Haiti earthquake, Family Links, Wednesday evening 13 January. It has registered 14,000 messages in less than two days, says Robert Zmmerman, deputy head of the ICRC Central Tracing Agency and Protection Division in Geneva. The ICRC is working closely with the Haitian Red Cross Society, as well as several other national societies, to connect those who are missing, or knowledge of them, and their families.
At the moment there are”primarily two users,” Zimmerman told GenevaLunch. “People outside Haiti and those who are able to register, to make themselves known.” But he adds, this is obviously limiting as long as communication lines are down. Many people “won’t be able to register themselves so we have people, our colleagues, who are feeding in information about the injured” or dead as they find it – in hospitals and on the streets in Haiti. “This is being set up right now, on the spot, but we don’t have details yet for how this is going to go. We’re faced with the same communications problems with our own staff.”
People seeking information about persons missing in Haiti are advised to use the Family Links site. The list can be viewed publicly.
Update 12:10 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The US intends to negotiate a legally binding protocol on cluster munitions under the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), says Harold Hongju Koh, legal advisor to the US Department of State.
Shadu, age 3, has lost his mother, DR Congo (image: ICRC June 2009, P Yazdi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – More than half of the civilians directly touched by the world’s eight major conflicts have been displaced, and half say they have lost contact with a family member. One in five have lost their livelihood.
These are some of the findings of a statistical and interview set of surveys ordered by the International Red Cross (ICRC), based in Geneva, to ascertain the extent to which civilians today are affected by major conflicts.
The greatest fears mentioned by people surveyed:
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Several international aid agencies working with internally displaced people (IDPs) in northwest Pakistan have called for a more rapid deployment of funds in order to help the estimated 2.4 million (IDPs) who fled fighting in the Swat valley in May 2009, even as more arrive daily from the conflict areas. Most of the IDPs have found shelter not in camps but with friends and family. This hospitality is now being sorely tested as more and more families are arriving at camps, says the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees).
"Silver Heroe" exhibit, Sister Madonna Buder, age 78, triathlon
St Gallen, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The ICRC (International Red Cross) has been awarded the Prix des Générations 2009 by the World Demographic Association (WDA), given annually to an international personality or institution in acknowledgement of significant lifelong contributions to the well-being of several generations.
The prize carries a cash award of CHF 50,000 and has been given for the first time to an organization. The four previous winners are: Helmut Schmidt (2005), Václav Havel (2006), Waris Dirie (2007) and Mary Robinson (2008).
Renens, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The first team of volunteers at the train station in Renens went to work 3 June to help travelers and keep the calm. The volunteer project is part of the CFF rail company programme to reduce vandalism and violence. Renens, canton Vaud police and the CFF rail company joined forces to train the volunteers, who will work at the station every evening.
Similar systems have been in place in Yverdon and Aigle for several months and are linked to a larger CFF programme that includes Big Brothers working on trains, particularly evenings, to reduce violence.
Photo: IFRC
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Zimbabwe will mark its 100,000th case of cholera this week or next, says the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, IFRC. Almost 4,300 people have died of the disease since its outbreak in August 2008.
By students at Collège Voltaire, Geneva
Abruzzo, Italy, May 2009 (photo, Gabriele Tosi, Order of Malta, reproduced with permission)
Although the Swiss Red Cross has already sent help to the victims of the Italian earthquake that devastated the town of Aquila in Abruzzo, Italy 6 April 2009, Italy still needs donations. The Swiss association sent 200 tents and CHF 300,000.
Up to a hundred civilians died in Afghanistan following US air strikes against Taliban militants active in the region.
The civilians, including women and children, had been caught up in fighting between Afghan government forces and the Taliban in the western district of Farah.
The Taliban reportedly attacked a police checkpoint, then took refuge in a nearby village targeted by US forces.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, currently in Washington to meet with President Barack Obama, has ordered an investigation.
Andreas Notter (image © 2009 T Gassmann, ICRC)
Geneva, Switzerland (TSR, Fre and ICRC) – Swiss ICRC (International Red Cross) employee Andreas Notter, back in Switzerland after he escaped his captors in the Philippines 19 April, told journalists at a press conference today that he was not freed by force by the Philippines army, one of the stories circulating about his move to freedom.
Title: Photography Exhibit: Stigmata
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: An exhibition organised by the Musee de l’Elysee, and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum highlighting pictures of people and places dealing with situations of crisis.
Start Date: 09 Mar 2009
End Date: 26 Jul 2009
Updated 19 March 08:30 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Philippines senator said 19 March that rebels holding three ICRC (International Red Cross) employees in the Philippines have agreed to release one of them, according to the local Red Cross Thursday. The three hostages include one Swiss. Wednesday the rebels, who were in a gunfire battle with government forces early this week, threatened to behead one of the hostages if they were attacked again.
Title: Children’s activities: visit to the Red Cross museum
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: The Red Cross and Red Crescent museum and the International School of Geneva tell you in young words about the museum.
In English, for kids 8 to 16 years of age and their parents.
Free entrance to those under 16 years of age. No booking required.
Date: 22 Mar 2009
ICRC, Red Cross activities in Philippines, 2009 (map © ICRC)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Geneva-based ICRC (International Red Cross) confirmed Wednesday that Lady Ann Sahidulla, vice-governor of Sulu Island and chair of the Sulu Red Cross in the Philippines, was able to visit the three Red Cross workers who were kidnapped 15 January while returning from a visit to a prison. The three have been in regular phone contact with the Red Cross and appear to be healthy and calm.
