The District Annual Hjelpe Korps First Aids Competition

        Last weekend on the 24th of April I went to Molde to attend the District annual Hjelpe Korps First Aids competition, but actually we reached there one day before the competition. There were (6) groups from different parts of the district participating.

        Groups gathering abd the last instructions

      All groups are ready for the competition

       The entire participants got an orientation session a day before then they got the plans and instructions papers and guide lines in Molde Red Cross House by “Trond Inge” and “Irene Kvangarsnes” from the District office.

Trond Inge doing the orientation for the groups at the Red Cross House in Molde

    Irene explaning the competition rules to group

The idea of the competition is to refresh the knowledge of the participants of the groups in First Aids program every year. The (3) winning groups will get the prizes.

   Langevøg group declaring the challenge to other groups

  Me and Irene before the competition starts

The Ambulance we use to spervise the groups

       All the participant groups should pass through (10) points in which they should give the First Aids service to wounded people in different cases. These points distributed in different places in Molde Sentrum. The winning group will be that one who collects more points.

    Part of the competition practical activities 

    First Aids for a person after they took him fom the Sea

                First Aids to stab wound patient

        It was so interesting thing that to follow the groups from place to another and see them giving the help.

                         First Aids during car accident

                             First Aids for lost people

       At the end of the day we had dinner together with all participants in a nice restaurant where the (3) won groups (Rauma, Kristiansund and Langeråg).

   Rauma group the first winner of the competition

       Other groups recieving their presents

Amazingly I won small prize in the lottery that was done during the small party.

              I am.. the lucky guy who won the lottery

The Annual Meeting in Geironger

       The annual meeting of Møre og Romsdal Red Cross is special occasion for the district office staff and for the entire local youth groups.

Union Hotel

 

Usually it holds on the last week of April of every year. This year it was at the 16th, 17th and the 18th of April but the preparations started long time before.

        The annual meeting got this importance because it is the only one chance for all the members from the different parts of the district to meet together; moreover it holds in Geironger, small tourist town in the western part of Norway in the region called Sunnmøre in the municipality of Stranda.

Nice ciene from Geironger

Geiranger is home to some of the most spectacular scenery in the world.

   

                 Brittt Elli from the youth and Sivert

                    The Gathering During The Elections

       At the first day we reached “Hotel Union” and booked in. the next day the program started after breakfast. All youths gathered in the meeting room for a presentation about the International Humanitarian Low (IHL) by Benedicte Olsen. It included many points and group discussion.

Benedicte Oslen During the Presentation

      

The elections of the district border took place to choose the new office. Brit Eli was chosen to represent the youths.

          Børge Brande with me after the Elections

Børge Brende, the general secretary of the Norwegian Red Cross talked about the achievements of the Red Cross during the previous period and talked about the efforts exerted during Haiti disaster and thanked all the Red Cross members for what they had done.

              Me & Lemi Chris During Our presentation

During the day me and my co-delegate had a presentation about what we have done during our stay in Norway in Møre og Romsdal District, then we played nice movie of some pictures of our activities.

                         Dinna Time Before the Party 

       At night it was nice Dinner we had, as Børge Brande honouered Elisabet Lønset for her great efforts with the poor families activites. After Dinner we all enjoyed the night party. Hope if I can attend the annual meeting next year, but actually I will be home Sudan.

                    Børge Brande Hounering Elisabet

Molde På Flukt

            The “På Flukt” Role Play is one of the most important activities in the Norwegian Red Cross Youth Program. It is a good experience for the youths and volunteers to feel the hard life and suffering of the refuges when they start their journey from their countries to another country seeking peace and a better life.

Group pictor for the facilitators

         During the Role play the participants act as refugees, and the facilitators play different roles as soldiers or migration office staff. They treat participants quite rough, typically like the normal treatment that refugees experience by soldiers and officials – both outside, in the nature as well as the migration office.

Different roles for participants.. me , Margret, Mari and Tone in soldiers role.

        More than 80 participants Red Cross members and 20 facilitators attended the “På Flukt” plat in Molde in Møre og Romsdal District in Norway, between the 26th - 28th of March.

The participants before the På Flukt.

         I had been invited as a youth delegate to participate in this program by Matilde Etholm, the coordinator of the På Flukt play. It was my 3rd participation in this role play, but this time I participated as a facilitator and not as a refugee like the others. This time it was a long På Flukt play, running for 24 hours.

Matilde Etholm, the coordinator explaining the program

          In the first day in Molde all the facilitators gathered together for arrangements and to give everyone their roles. I had three roles, the first one to be one of the staff of the migration office, then guide for the refugees to the refugee’s camp in a long journey about two hours of walking. My last role was to guard the participants after they finished the program during their sleeping.

Facilitator meeting at the first day to give them their roles

        

          The day of the play was on the 27th of March. All the participants came and were distributed into families and soon started their journey as refugees moving from Somalia to Norway.

Ida in the role of Somalian lady.

         During this long journey they passed through many stages before reaching the refugee camp, which were already organized by the facilitator to look like a real one. There they spent a horrible night and slept in a very cold rainy weather.

Teah and Mari arranging for their roles

        There were about (17) participants stopped and discontinued the program after they reached the refugees camps because of the bad weather and exhaustion.

Cold and hard weather for the participants.

        The next day we had the breakfast with all the participants and discussed the events of the På Flukt play and thanked everyone for their participation.

The participants having their breakfast with the facilitator at the last day.

        Absolutely it was an additional experience for me to add during my mission in Norway working for the Youth Exchange Program.

I am.. the bad soldier..

Ålesund Weekend Course

       Ålesund weekend course was the first big and important activity that was achieved after establishing the local youth group there. Actually we prepared the course mainly for the new members to join them with the Red Cross activities and to feel the voluntary feeling and its fundamental principles.

 The Participant of the Course

       Otherwise we want them also to get some experiences from the other youth delegates from Nepal, Rwanda and our contact person “Lotte Katborg” the co-ordinator of the program.

 

Lotte and Durga Fixing The Comment

        The course was hold on the period between the 5th – 7th of March in Vandrerhjemmet Hostel in Ålesund Sentrum, close to the Red Cross House of Ålesund local youth group.

 Vandrerhjemmet Hostel in Ålesund Sentrum

        We sent invitations to all the local youth groups to participate in the course with their volunteers. We had 7 groups.The total number of people who attended the course was 21 participants, the Rwandese youth delegates (Kenneth and Fify) from Lillestrøm an Nepali youth delegates (Sajan and Durga) from Arendal.

Part of The Profram

         Lotte Katborg, Astrid Lindvik Velsvik “the youth leader in the district”, one from Volda, 2 from Ørsta, 3 from Molde and 8 from Ålesund included 3 from the asylum centre also were there. We invited some other youths from the asylum centre, but they also apologized the same day of the course.

 

Lotte and some of The Participants

        The first day of the course started with welcoming and checking in for the participants. Social evening activities were done by youth delegates from Arendal and Lillestrom.

Me and The Rwandese and Nepali Youth Delegates

        The second day me and my co-delegate had a presentation about Ålesund local youth group and what we have done and our strategy for the coming period. Active choice presentation and some games were done by the Rwandese youth delegates as well as we had enjoyed the Rwandese nice traditional dance that Fifi did.

Rwandese Youth Delegates During their Presentation

        Astrid also talked about Red Cross school. Then it was Volda participation by Espen. The participants distributed into groups after gave them a news paper. Each group was supposed to use the pictures and the headlines and letters of the news paper to write an article about one of the activities of the Red Cross.

Astrid and Ruben Distriputing Posts Carts

        Rules of war and the International Humanitarian Low were presented by Britt Eli, the leader of Ålesund local youth group.

       The last day was completely about the human trafficking by the Nepali youth delegates, who are very skilled and have a lot of experiences about this activity.

 Nepalese Youth Delegates During Human Trafficking Presentation

The Social Program of The Asylum Centre

      The social program for the asylum centre people is one of the activities we recently prepared and organized to minimize the stressful situations they feel, as they are living now away from their families and friends.
      The Idea of this program is to prepare recreational programs for the asylum centre’s people such as social gatherings, visiting bowling centre, pizza or visiting one of the parks.

Mueiz traying to throw the ball

       In Ålesund we have two asylum centers. One is in the Sentrum and the second one is in Moa. We visited the two places and met the asylum seekers there to arrange the program with them. There are more than 35 persons in the two centers but the majority of them are males. We could not find specific number for that because they move from place to another inside Norway, or out of it.

Pizza Of The Day.

       On Sunday 13th of January we prepared the first social program for 13 of the asylum seekers, 3 girls and 10 guys. First we went to the bowling centre. We had a nice time there playing and talking. After that we went together to have pizza at one of the restaurants.

Me And Jack At The Bowling Centre

         Actually it was a nice thing that we went together with those people and talked with them, and also it is good for them to recreate themselves instead of the stressed time they spend usually during their waiting for their paper and the permission to live in Norway. We noticed that they were very happy also with the program.

Unsuccessful Try of me

        Unfortunately we were planning to do the same for the second group of the asylum centre seekers but we couldn’t do it according to financial causes, as we discussed it with our contact person at the office, but hope we can do it during the coming period.

Abdollatif In Action

Haiti Earthquake

       Haiti is large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean Sea. It discovered by the European navigator Christopher Columbus in December 5, 1492.

Part of the damage in Haiti

Me and Torun, one of the rescue team members during the stand

        On Tuesday, 12 January 2010 and the days after horrible earthquakes occurred n Hait a lot of people were injured, some died and others lost their houses and live without shelter, food and medical care. Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks had been damaged by the earthquake, which hampered rescue and aid efforts; confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems with prioritization of flights further complicated early relief work.

Hanne, youth delegate in Columbia last between Alesund youth group members

       Many countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel.

Stand in Ålesund with the new member’s.

        According to that tragic situation we in Ålesund local youth group in Møre og Romsdal Red  Cross started to collect some money to send it to Haiti in order to help affected people there.

Some of the asylum centre members

       Our first stand was in the Ålesund, the Sentrum on 18th of January in the evening. We were nine members holding the money boxes for donation. Within two hours we collected more than six thousand Norwegian Kroner. But at the second stand on Friday 22nd the total amount of money collected was 16 thousand Norwegian Kroner with less than two hours only. This reflects that people want to help and support the tragic situation.

Part of the concert in Ålesund

       We also participated in another program to collect some money for Haiti, a concert prepared privately by “Webjorn Brogotad” and “Ropert Post”, to persons from Ålesund in collaborated with Møre og Romsdal Red Cross. It was on the 28th of January. There were different participants, singers’, dramatics. It was very nice, we enjoyed it.

Part of the concert in Ålesund

Part of the concert in Ålesund

        Although it was small amount of money that we collected but we felt good because we helped the affected people of Haiti and involved our new member in our activities and they were so active during this programs.

Part of the concert programs in Ålesund

Part of the concert programs in Ålesund