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

Førde Youth Conference

       I started the New Year of 2010 in Norway by my second travel out of the Møre og Romsdal District, in witch i visited Førde in the Sogn og Fjordane District. My first visit was to Tromso last October.

The bus of the trip.

      We got an invitation from the Red Cross youth co-coordinator of the district Red Cross in Førde, Christian Vik to attend the youth conference on the 15th – 17th of last January. My co-delegate Lemi Chris was ill, so I had to go there alone and do a presentation about being youth delegate and the activities we do in Norway.

First trip to i went without my co-delegate.

     It was the longest journey of my life; it took about nine hours by bus. But actually I had a wonderful trip. Espen from Volda and Ruben from Ørsta joined me on the bus. Snow already covered everywhere, mountains, roofs of the houses and even the trees. The nicest scene was the frozen lakes we passed through.

Snow covered every thing.

     When we reached Førde, Christian Vik and his colleagues took us to the place of the program where we met about thirty five participants from the same district, Most of them girls.

Some of the participants.

      The first and second day the program was about the rules of War (IHR), Activities for asylum centre, human trafficking, social activities and outdoors activities. Again I tried skiing after the first time in Haralvangen when I came to Norway first time in January 2009 for YBTC course (Youth Basic Training Course).

Participants during the activities.

     Moreover I spent a very nice time learning new things from a rescue team leaders’ experiences - I now know how to find people who are lost and covered by snow using special equipments and the rescue team trained dog.

 

Thr resce team trained dog.

Red Cross snow mobil.

   At the end of the second day I had my presentations. I talked about our activities as youth delegates in Norway and then tried to motivate the youths to become youth delegates. I mentioned the series followed by the national societies to select the youth delegates and the courses they will receive in Norway during the YBTC.

Part of the presentation.

      Actually the time of the presentation was not suitable because it was at night and most of the attendances were sleepy as they spent a lot of time during the outdoors activities in the snow.

Outdooractivities.

The last day the election of the national board of the district took place and the new members were selected

.

The elcted new member.

Like the previous programs we attended a lot of Norwegian were spoken, something that made it difficult for me to communicate during the conference, but I knew that it would be the second major challenge during my mission time after the weather.

All presentation was in Norwegian languages.