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Annual Report 2009 Fiji Red Cross Society Fiji Red Cross Society Annual Report 2009 Annual Report 2009

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Annual Report 2009 Fiji Red Cross Society Fiji Red Cross Society Annual Report 2009 Annual Report 2009 Annual Report 2009 FIJI RED CROSS SOCIETY FIJI RED CROSS SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 2009 Humanity Independence The International Red Cross and Red The Movement is independent. The Crescent Movement, born of a desire to National Societies, while auxiliaries bring assistance without discrimination in the humanitarian services of their to the wounded on the battlefield, governments and subject to the laws endeavours, in its international and of their respective countries, must national capacity, to prevent and always maintain their autonomy so that alleviate human suffering wherever it they may be able at all times to act in may be found. Its purpose is to protect accordance with the principles of the life and health and to ensure respect for Movement. the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, cooperation Voluntary service and lasting peace amongst all peoples. It is a voluntary relief movement not Impartiality prompted in any manner by desire for gain. It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class Unity or political opinions. It endeavours to relieve the suffering of individuals, There can be only one Red Cross being guided solely by their needs, and or one Red Crescent Society in any to give priority to the most urgent cases one country. It must be open to all. It of distress. must carry on its humanitarian work throughout its territory. Neutrality Universality In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the Movement may The International Red Cross and Red not take sides in hostilities or engage at Crescent Movement, in which all Cover Photo: any time in controversies of a political, Societies have equal status and share Courtesy of Rob Few (International Federation of racial, religious or ideological nature. equal responsibilities and duties in Red Cross and Red Crescent) helping each other, is worldwide. 1 FIJI RED CROSS SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2009 Mission Statement “Volunteer led humanitarian organisation committed to quality service delivery to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in Fiji.” 1 FIJI RED CROSS SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2009 MESSAGE FROM THE NATIONAL PRESIDENT It is always a pleasure for me to write this Report. This is because it gives me an opportunity to reflect on our Society, our work, our achievements and to contemplate where we go from here. Circumstances evolve of course and it is our challenge to remain focused on our objectives, maintaining and improving our standards when carrying out our work and to abide by our Fundamental Principles at all times. Before writing this, I read my Report for 2008. What was most pleasing when I did that is that it enabled me to gauge our successes and our challenges. Did we live up to the goals we had set for ourselves? I am extremely proud to say that, while we may not have achieved all of what we had set out to do, we can justifiably say that we reached some significant milestones that are worthy of note. For this, recognition must be accorded to our Director General, staff, branches and volunteers as well as our National Board. We, together with our regional National Societies, had set out to achieve greater regional cooperation, unity and commonality. This goal was set at our regional meeting in Vanuatu in April 2008. I am extremely proud to report that, thanks to the New Zealand Red Cross, we turned this goal into a reality at our regional meeting i.e. the Leadership Forum, held in Auckland in October 2009. At that meeting, we sat down as a region and discussed, debated and reached consensus on what the Pacific’s position would be on key issues to be determined at the General Assembly and Council of Delegates Meeting in Nairobi in November 2009. The Pacific Group was unique and stood out at the Nairobi meetings because our voice was heard on all the key decisions reached there. When one Pacific National Society spoke at a key session, that Society spoke on behalf of all of us; this had an 2 3 FIJI RED CROSS SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2009 enormous impact on all those present captured our National Society. When because we were the only region that our “grassroots” considered this, what spoke as one. Our force in numbers resulted was completely different resulted in our positions and views and a vast improvement. I say this affecting key policy and other decisions because our “Mission” and “Vision” on Climate Change, HIV/AIDS and as articulated in our Strategic Plan Migration to name a few. In all of my beautifully captures what we are about. time with Red Cross, I had never seen I wish to sincerely thank all of our this happen before. This meeting was members and staff for making this such also significant because a person a success. I must single out Mr. Terry from our region was, for the first time, Butt for special praise because it was elected President of the International through his dedicated and hard work Federation. I speak, of course, of Mr that we have achieved such a fantastic Tadateru Konoé, President of Japan living document. Red Cross. Of course, serious work remains. We We should also be proud of our must fulfill all of the goals we have set. participation in helping the International Notable among these is the creation of Federation complete “Strategy 2020”. an IHL Committee; we are committed This plan sets out the broad goals and to start the process this year. We will parameters of our functions as a Global work very closely with Government Movement. It is an extremely important to make this a reality. We must also document because it helps determine strive to incorporate our Youth more our duties and objectives as a National effectively- we have made that Society. It identifies where we currently commitment and must follow through stand as a Movement, gives guidance with it. I have every confidence that the about what we can do to better carry new National Board, together with our out our work and it develops what we Director General, the National Society strive to do to remain able to meet all of staff and our branches and volunteers the challenges we face. I encourage all will continue the great work and ensure of us to read it. our continued growth. If I had to single out one thing as I wish you all the very best. representative of our growth and development as a National Society (it is difficult given the great work our Society does), it would have to be our work in completing our William Wylie Clarke Strategic Plan 2010-2014. The task National President of completing this fell to every level of our National Society, from Branches and our volunteers, to our external stakeholders up to our National Board. In other words, everyone was involved in shaping it. We should be justly proud of what was achieved in putting this together. A very strong illustration of how engaged we were at all levels was the formulation of our “Mission” and “Vision”. When National Board considered this issue, we were conservative and of the view that the existing wording accurately 2 3 FIJI RED CROSS SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2009 DIRECTOR GENEraL’S REPORT Trained volunteers key to Red Cross disaster response As perhaps what has become the norm - the year started off in the first week of January with a natural disaster – this time severe flooding in the western division caused by two tropical depression systems over Fiji. A state of natural disaster was declared by the government for the western division – some say the worst flooding in Fiji’s history, which claimed the lives of ten people. I am proud to say that Fiji Red Cross though deployment of 14 Emergency Response Teams was able to render assistance to over 41,000 of the most affected people. We thank the Governments of Australia, New Zealand, China, France and South Africa and the Fiji public who gave generously to provide this relief and enable us to restock for future disasters. In December Tropical Cyclone Mick, although only Category 2, caused four fatalities, a trail of destruction with over 3,000 people in 70 villages and settlements being assisted by us. Our on-going community programmes As reported elsewhere in this Annual Report, the continued growth in our number of community service programmes centred on our primary objective - to help improve the lives of vulnerable people in Fiji. As a result of the devastating floods earlier in the year, the Society embarked on a new programme, disaster risk reduction. This focuses on the two areas where devastation was the greatest and teaches the communities the hazards of disaster and prepares them to minimise risks from potential natural disasters. I am also elated that after many years, Fiji’s proposal to the Global Fund to fight Tuberculosis, AIDS and Malaria was successful in Round 10. This is for TB and our Society is the key stakeholder with the Government of Fiji and although not commencing 4 5 FIJI RED CROSS SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2009 until 2010, augers well to sustain our Youth Meeting in Solferino in Italy – ongoing community programmes for the place where Henri Dunant first the ensuing 5 years. witnessed suffering as a result of war. Challenges of the new decade Assisting our Pacific neighbours In order to ensure that the Society Not since the devastating tsunami can continue to effectively meet the in Asia on Boxing day 2004, has needs of the vulnerable population the public been so generous by in Fiji, we embarked on a review of contributing to the plight of the our Strategic Plan 2006-2009 and thousands of victims of the tsunami completed formulation of the Society’s which suddenly hit Samoa and Tonga new Strategic Plan 2010-2014.
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