Amir Mohsen Ziaei told reporters on Thursday that with continuous efforts and physical advancements since 2013, “now the country has the honor of being among first 10 countries, and in some sub-sections, it challenges first five countries in the list.”
“Red Crescent Society and Red Cross have as their sub-categories the International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent, International Red Cross Committee, and National Societies; the major areas of the Red Crescent Society activity and focus are natural disasters regularly hitting different parts of the world; prevention and risk reduction, post-disaster response, human development, peace and humanitarian aid for the affected; the Society seeks to attend its inherent duties of protecting human dignity, reduction of human disasters and protecting resilience of human societies,” said the head of Society. “We are an independent and neutral organization, apolitical in nature and without borders; now the Society works with 8,000 members, 60 per cent of which are staff workers and the remaining 40 per cent wait in queue,” said Ziaei.
“The Red Crescent Society is divided into two categories of Youth Society and Volunteers Society; currently, we have 650,000 young people as volunteers, roughly falling to the age group above 29; their most important job is to promote social capacities; they would not participate in relief and rescue operations,” he detailed.
On challenges facing the Society, Zieaei said that the budget received by the organization was an annual installment of $200mn allocated by government as part of its public expenditure; “we face shortages in rescue helicopters, ambulances, and medical facilities; in line with meeting these challenges, we have made arrangements with two prominent universities in science, Amir Kabir and Sharif Universities of Technology to provide us with rescue robots,” he said.
Ziaei also said that last year, “the Society covered about 4,000 disasters; with 500 fixed bases nationwide, which would be increased to 1,000, and 17 helicopters (still facing severe shortage in terms of per-province number), we have launched a foundation to promote staff and members’ knowledge and capabilities,” he detailed.
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