The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) organized in collaboration with the National Society of the Haitian Red Cross (CRH), a training workshop on restoring family links. The purpose of the workshop was to enable participants to better help people who have lost contact with their relatives as a result of natural hazards or migration.

Some 35 volunteers from 14 chapters of the CRH were trained in different techniques and approaches that will enable them to respond more effectively to the needs of victims.

This training is part of the continuous support that the ICRC brings to CRH, its partner of the International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, also consists of a transfer of skills that will lead to the establishment of a network capable of meeting the needs in restoring family links. The network will cover the whole territory of Haiti and will have the capacity to assist effectively separated persons or without news of their relatives as a result of armed conflict, situations of violence, major natural hazards or other crisis situations.

"It is important to establish the response capacities within the Haitian Red Cross before a possible humanitarian crisis hit the country," said Dr. Guiteau Jean-Pierre, President of the CRH at the close of the workshop "The various disasters we have experienced, especially the January 2010 earthquake, have made us aware of the urgent need to strengthen our service to restore family links to better meet the needs in this area."

Recall that the Haitian Red Cross, in cooperation with its partners of the International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, had permitted after the earthquake of January 2010, at about 6,400 people to confirm that they were alive and helped thousands more to re-establish contact with their relatives.

HL/ HaitiLibre