An Afghan Red Crescent volunteer checks that local women have received food aid for their families.

Volunteers

Volunteers are the backbone of all Red Cross Red Crescent activities and help National Societies run successful programmes. There are some 97 million members and volunteers in the Movement, of whom an estimated 20 million are active volunteers.

Volunteer courage
During 2002, volunteers continued their traditional Red Cross Red Crescent work in ever more difficult environments. The "normal business" of first aid, training and social programmes continued along with response to natural and man-made disasters.

However Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers were also called upon to rescue and bring comfort to the victims of increasingly frequent incidents of violence.

In early March, two members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society's emer-gency health team were killed and at least eight wounded in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin. At the same time, volunteers from Magen David Adom in Israel carried out their activities, often at great personal risk, during an upsurge in violence.

Volunteers were among the first on the scene to offer a lifesaving hand when bomb blasts struck a tourist resort in Bali, Indonesia, in October and a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, in November.

Following an explosion in a munitions dump in Nigeria in February, volunteers opened a tracing centre that reunited 1,600 children with their families. The Red Cross also played a vital role in calming ethnic tensions in the country during the year.

In early March, Indian Red Cross Society volunteers were almost the only independent first aiders able to provide humanitarian assistance to both Muslim and Hindu communities after violence erupted in Gujarat. Later that month, Italian volunteers assisted 917 Kurdish children, women and men who arrived in Italy by sea in appalling conditions.

Volunteers also worked round the clock to help residents of the conflict-affected towns of Bouaké and Korhogo in Côte d'Ivoire after an armed rebellion broke out in September.

One year after the 11 September attacks, the American Red Cross released a comprehensive report detailing the aid provided to the 55,000 people most directly affected, acknowledging the generosity of thousands of donors, and honouring the work of tens of thousands of volunteers. The report showed that the Liberty Disaster Relief Fund received more than US$ 1 billion in receipts, and disbursed US$ 643 million by the one-year anniversary.

Supporting volunteers
During 2002, the Federation continued its work to develop better structures to recruit and support volunteers. To this end, a Volunteering policy implementation guide was published.

A major learning opportunity last year was the International Conference on Volunteer Administration, held in Denver, USA.

The Federation also worked with United Nations Volunteers and the Inter-Parliamentary Union in a loose coalition to influence governments on legal and fiscal conditions for volunteering.

Youth power
Red Cross Red Crescent youth make up a substantial part of the Movement. In 2002, they continued to play an essential role in the dissemination of humanitarian values through non-violence and anti-discrimination campaigns.

During the year, the Federation forged an alliance with six other global youth organizations, to call attention to the plight of young people affected by HIV/AIDS.

All around the world, young volunteers spread information through peer education and community-based activities.