Marco Jimenez in Mexico-City
The Mexican Red Cross began its campaign in Mexico City distributing 2 million leaflets and 200,000 posters containing information on H1N1.
Distribution was focused on places where there large crowds still gather, despite the limited movement of people over the past week. The volunteers met at MRC headquarters to pick up the leaflets and then went to airports, collective transport stations -bus and metro stations, commercial centres and places MRC ambulances are concentrated throughout the city where they are in continuous contact with the public.
When distribution was finished, the volunteers took it upon themselves to continue giving out leaflets in their communities among families and friends, with the objective of achieving the greatest impact possible on this first day of dissemination.
“When I started out as a Red Cross volunteer, it would have been unthinkable to implement this type of information campaign. There were neither the resources nor the training to do it. Apart from that, people didn’t trust someone trying to give them information. The development of communication media has changed people’s attitudes a lot. People are more willing to take preventative measures” confirms Héctor Gómez, lawyer by profession, MRC volunteer for 41 years, and acting head of the ‘Veteran’ group of volunteers, one of the most experienced supporting pillars in the work of the Mexican Red Cross. “The only other time we carried out such a campaign was to promote measures to be taken in an earthquake situation, which we implemented during the earthquakes in Mexico City in 1985”.
Although most people are happy to receive the information provided by the MRC, the volunteers’ ability to strike up a rapport is crucial for the message to be passed on; to create a situation of trust whereby effective and far-reaching dissemination can be achieved. “90% of people receive the information, read it carefully and even ask some questions. There are others who, no sooner than they receive the leaflet, throw it in a rubbish bin a few steps on” affirms Jessica Martínez, volunteer for the past five years with the MRC.
“The flu caught us by surprise and the information has been so contradictory and unclear that the work of the Red Cross informing us about the disease is necessary – it’s great. The only way to look after others is to look after ourselves”, says Leticia León, in transit through Mexico City airport, where she received the leaflet from the MRC. “Do you have a face mask for us?”
Dissemination will continue over the coming days with the whole volunteer team mobilized for as long as is necessary and possible. The next problem which the MRC will have to deal with is to respond to the increasing number of requests for face masks, which are already sold out on the local market and which the MRC is trying, by all means possible, to get in different countries in the region and further afield.