Youth on the move

It started with an idea. Today, it is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, present in 186 countries and with tens of millions of volunteers.

In June, 500 youth from 149 countries gathered for the third Red Cross Red Crescent World Youth Meeting in Solferino, Italy. This is the place where a 31-year-old, Henry Dunant, horrified by the battle of Solferino, asked how we can do more to reduce suffering.

Dunant’s question is still relevant. The world is riven by conflict, poverty, migration, violence, climate change, sickness and discrimination. And his spirit still inspires humanitarian action. Youth leaders at the meeting, with the theme ‘Youth on the move’, represent tens of millions of youth volunteers on the front lines of today’s most pressing humanitarian challenges. What will they take home from Solferino?

It is a hot June day in northern Italy. The sun beats down on a huge expanse of mown fields. Out of buses pour young women and men wearing uniforms bearing crosses, crescents and crystals, and lugging suitcases and backpacks. Some have travelled three days to be here. They blink in the midsummer light.

Within minutes they mingled with other youth from all over the world. They exchanged National Society pins and, for four intense days, shared tents, meals and discussions at the third Red Cross Red Crescent World Youth Meeting – this year themed ‘Youth on the move’.

“We stay in tents with different ethnicities, different people,” said Salimata Konan, a participant from the Red Cross Society of Côte d’Ivoire. “We don’t even speak the same language but we communicate. My neighbour is from China and it’s strange but we manage to communicate. It demonstrates the principle of humanity. It touches me deeply.”

In the footsteps of Dunant

These dry fields are the same place where, 150 years ago in June 1859, young Genevan businessman Henry Dunant was appalled by the needless suffering and death following the battle of Solferino. In the absence of any trained help, he organized local people to transport the wounded and give them water, food and first aid. Afterwards, he wrote A Memory of Solferino, in which he conceived the idea of what is today the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Dunant’s spirit continues to inspire youth today, said Lyn Garcia, the president of the national youth council of the Philippine National Red Cross.

“There’s a part in A Memory of Solferino where no one helps him and he knocks on the door looking for someone who can help him. Ladies come to help and they organize a simple hospital,” she said. “I relate it to myself. Now I am the one asking for other people to help the Red Cross because we are here for suffering people. We are here for humanity. Without us, what will happen to the Movement? Without us, what will happen to vulnerable people? So that’s my inspiration from Henry Dunant.”

The Youth Meeting, which takes place every ten years, included workshops and practical exercises on topics considered important and voted on by young people, such as preventing the spread of HIV, recruiting volunteers and building branches, dealing with disaster, climate change, the rights of children, water and sanitation, forced migration, restoring family links and the Sphere Project’s minimum standards.

The evenings brought concerts, competitions and ‘share and compare’ cultural exchanges with handicrafts, food, dancing and singing. In addition, people of all ages from every National Society were invited to take part in activities at a ‘humanitarian village’ and carry a torch in the fiaccolata, an annual candlelit procession following in the footsteps of Dunant and his volunteers.

In 1859, non-discrimination was important to Dunant, who gave aid to soldiers regardless of which side they were on. This year, too, non-discrimination was a theme running through events, which culminated in a Youth Declaration drafted in Solferino. Travelling by bus and on foot, 228 young people carried the declaration on the ‘journey of an idea’ and presented it to governments, the United Nations, international non-governmental organizations and the leadership of the Red Cross Red Crescent in Geneva.

The declaration calls on National Societies to “declare that discrimination of any kind is unacceptable in our Movement, including discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation”.

For Konan, non-discrimination is an essential part of the future of the Movement. “I see youth in charge, youth who are not afraid to see two people of the same sex holding hands. I hope at the next Solferino many more people participate and don’t hide their sexual choice,” she said.

But first, there is work to be done. Amal Emam, an Egyptian Red Crescent Society volunteer, said her very presence in Solferino helped educate youth who have difficulty looking past her headscarf.

“I know for many people I show diversity,” said Emam, a young doctor. “Just look into my heart and my mind and then we can talk. I look at people as individuals, hearts and minds, not colour and clothes. Feeling you’re being discriminated against for clothes and colour or religion is really hard.”

Be the change you wish to see

Diversity enriches humanitarian work, she said. For example, during an exercise in a workshop on international humanitarian law, her team’s task was to get members from one side of a rope to the other. The solution seemed obvious: lift everyone over. But as a Muslim woman, Amal Emam didn’t feel comfortable being lifted. She could have bowed to social pressure — or walked away from the exercise.

Instead, the young doctor challenged the group to find another way.

“It’s important when you’re looking for solutions to always search for alternatives because there is no one truth. It’s our power as youth to think of alternatives,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure there were others who weren’t comfortable either but they didn’t say. Be brave enough to say you’re not comfortable. People will follow you and help you.”

In the end, the group all agreed to form steps with their hands to transfer participants across the rope. It was a solution Amal Emam was happy with.

“I’m really proud to be part of this organization. Maybe if I had these ideas in another organization, they would not be considered. It’s the power of the people in our Movement.” She said she had volunteered in different organizations but felt most at home with the Movement’s Fundamental Principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

“This is something unique to our Movement and to our National Societies. I can be a physician and offer help but if I lack the humanity or impartiality there will be something missing.”

Diversity can be an issue after disasters, said Telma Tondo, 25, an Italian Red Cross volunteer since 2001, who helped organize the Youth Meeting. She also served in the aftermath of Italy’s Abruzzo earthquake, which cost the lives of more than 200 people including two Italian Red Cross volunteers, Daniela Bortoletti and Martina Di Battista.

After the earthquake, the Italian Red Cross asked Tondo to run a clown therapy programme with children living in temporary camps, where conflict between local people and immigrants continued after the disaster. She and other volunteers encouraged children to play together, even though their parents were barely on speaking terms.

Strength in diversity

Yacid Estrada Santiago, community health coordinator for the Colombian Red Cross Society and a member of RC/RC+, a network of people living with HIV, said youth needed to learn through experience.

“Once you have met someone living with HIV you will really understand the human side of it. Otherwise it will be just a disease and something that you have to make some efforts in order to prevent it,” he said.

“For example in the workshop we explained how we became infected and the stigma that we had to face. That really makes people change. They say, ‘Now I know someone [with HIV]’.

“It also destroys a lot of myths, such as you are looking sick, you cannot work, probably you are not in good health.

“They say, ‘I cannot believe you are living with HIV, you don’t look it’, which is good. It lowers the stigma.”

Non-discrimination can be a matter of life and death for people with HIV in Colombia, said Santiago. “We have internal conflict with armed groups. And people living with HIV have become a target for those armed groups. They receive pamphlets saying they could be killed. It has become a huge humanitarian problem.”

Attracting a more diverse group of volunteers into National Societies can help them reach new vulnerable groups, said Frederike de Graaf, a project manager at the Netherlands Red Cross. “We’re a multicultural society but in recent years society has been changing so fast that people don’t have time to adjust. That brings some tensions,” she said.

If the Netherlands Red Cross recruited volunteers from migrant groups, for example, they could help older migrants whose children no longer felt obliged to take care of them.

De Graaf, who is involved with a programme called ‘youth as agents of behavioural change’, used Youth on the move to develop a toolkit that can be used globally to help young people bring about change.

“We try to make people aware of their own prejudices – because I think it’s quite human to have prejudices. But you can give people the tools to realize that and change it into something positive. They will be able to spread the word to others.”

Serious trouble

Focusing on the Fundamental Principles of the Movement could help in situations of conflict, said Moshe Ohayon Danenberg, a volunteer coordinator, nurse and paramedic in an intensivecare ambulance for his National Society, the Magen David Adom in Israel.

“I feel that if we educate our youth according to the principles and values, it would probably influence the entire society, especially the armed conflict that we still have,” he said. “In that respect we have quite a lot to learn from the Palestine Red Crescent Society because they’re an old society and they have a lot of humanitarian relief programmes and they know how to use the principles and values.”

Danenberg said the world is in a mess. “I think the Movement will grow because right now our world is in serious trouble. It doesn’t matter who caused all the troubles, but they are here now. Wedon’t have any other choice but to start addressing these troubles.”

For the 500 youth at the meeting, the hard work started once they returned to their countries and National Societies to tackle ‘today’s Solferinos’.

Many youth resolved to apply ideas gathered from other National Societies. Vidiana Xareal, from Timor Leste Red Cross Society, was clear on what she would do. “I want to help my friends as young people to engage and to give them information about the Red Cross, road safety, drugs, cigarettes and HIV,” she said.

Summing up the enthusiasm and energy of many participants, Nehanda Higinio, of Belize Red Cross Society, wrote in a blog at www.ourworld-yourmove. org, “This experience has opened my eyes to the power we have as young people to change the world. I feel encouraged and excited to go home and share with everyone all that I have learned.”

Ghana Red Cross Society volunteer Ernest P. Nyame-Annan said youth need the whole Movement to engage.

“It will depend on what we do today. If we keep on doing the same thing we’ll have the same results in the next 150 years. But if we realize that there are so many things we need to change and we start today, then the future will be brighter,” he said.

“It takes you and me to do it. Your head, your heart, your hand. Join them together to change the world. Wonderful.”

Rosemarie North
Rosemarie North is the editor of Red Cross Red Crescent magazine.

At Youth on the move, Seibou Traore from the Red Cross Society of Côte d’Ivoire introduces himself to youth colleagues from the Canadian Red Cross Society.
©MARKO KOKIC / ICRC

Youth make their move

Badges and pins from other National Societies are in hot demand at Youth on the move.
©MARKO KOKIC / ICRC

Participants have fun at a workshop.
©MARKO KOKIC / ICRC

Cooperation during an emergency response unit demonstration.
©MARKO KOKIC / ICRC

ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger chats to a participant.
©MARKO KOKIC / ICRC

Diversity
in action

Meals are another opportunity for exchange and discussion.
©MARKO KOKIC / ICRC

It would not be a youth camp without bunk beds.
©MARKO KOKIC / ICRC

A furry friend.
©MARKO KOKIC / ICRC

International Federation Secretary General Bekele Geleta makes his gesture for humanity.
©JEAN CHARLES CHAMOIS / INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION

Beacons of hope

Lighting a candle before the fiaccolata procession.
©COLLIN PIERCE / INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION

Villagers cheer on thousands of people following in Henry Dunant’s footsteps.
©COLLIN PIERCE / INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION

The crowd gathers before the procession.
©COLLIN PIERCE / INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION

The evening ends with spectacular fireworks.
©COLLIN PIERCE / INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION