Chinese Red Cross Colleagues Pay Official Working Visit To ERCS

The Chinese Red Cross colleagues paid an official working visit to Ethiopian Red Cross Society Gamogofa Branch from June 26 to 28, 2013. The Chinese delegates include Professor Yang Tuan, Director of professional Committee of Social Policy in China, Mr. Zhang Yi, Program Officer, China Red Cross, and Mme. Zhang Ming Team leader of the delegates and ZTE representative Ato Betsegaw Tamirat , Engineer. The delegates were accompanied by Ato Hagos Gemechu, DSG for Program, Ato Gashaw Dagne, head of Health and Care department ERCS. The Secretary of Gomogofa RC branch office, Ato Mesele Mekonen together with the board members, higher Zonal government officials and RC volunteers made a warm reception to the guests upon arrival and showed hospitality during their visit. The objectives of the visit were to select specific project area, identify major needs of the community and to collect basic information for project proposal development and to build common understanding with the potential partner- China Red cross Society. In response to the IFRC call for bridging relief and development for a more sustainable future, the China Red Cross Society came to Ethiopia with the aim of establishing bilateral cooperation with ERCS. Within the multilateral frame work of the movement, CRCS has taken the initiative to face the humanitarian challenges in partnership with African National Societies that include Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Thus, it is planned to work together in the areas of the community resilience project which involve infrastructure construction and resilience capacity building. The project will be implemented following community based and development oriented principles. One pilot community is expected to be selected from three or more candidate communities based on needs and capacity. Generally, the program concentrates to improve community functions, build up welfare facilities, improve the lives of the vulnerable and enhance communities overall capacity of sustainable development, disaster management, risk reduction, first aid, health promotion and other Red Cross/Red Crescent community services.