Variety

Who founded the Red Cross?

World Red Cross Day was observed on May 8, the birthday of Jean Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross Societies. Most of you must be aware of the important humanitarian (promoting human welfare)role played by the Red Cross, especially during war situations and times of natural disasters.

Dunant was born on May 8, 1828 in Geneva, Switzerland. What made Dunant set up the Red Cross Movement?

In June 1859, Dunant who was 31 years old encountered a very pathetic situation in the battlefields of Solferino, Italy, where the armies of Imperial Austria and the Franco Sardinian Alliance had fought a deadly battle. Thousands of men lay dead or dying in the battlefield without any medical aid.

It was a very sorrowful and a shocking sight for young Dunant and he immediately acted to bring some redress to the wounded and dying. He got the local citizens together to give basic medical assistance to them. Some were Austrians, others French. Dunant was so deeply moved by what he saw that he wrote a book describing the horrible plight of the thousands of wounded soldiers left without any proper care or no care at all. In the book published in 1862 he made two proposals.

One was the need to form voluntary societies to give relief and medical assistance to those wounded in war and in times of peace and the other was to establish rules to govern the conduct of war and the protection of victims of the conflict irrespective of which side they belonged to. This was the basis of the present International Humanitarian Law.

The first proposal led to the birth of the first voluntary societies in 1864, to give relief to those who needed help. Today there are nearly 200 national societies the world over, where volunteers give relief and medical assistance to those in need. They are known as Red Cross Societies.

Dunant devoted most of his time to his humanitarian work, neglecting his business affairs. He went bankrupt and from then on he lived in poverty and obscurity. His whereabouts were unknown except to a very very few, until he was discovered by a journalist in 1895 in Heiden Switzerland. He became a public figure immediately and received many honours and prizes including the Nobel Prize. Henri Dunant was the first to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1901, the first year the Nobel Prizes were awarded.

Dunant lived another nine years fighting unceasingly to promote interest in the treatment of prisoners of war, the abolition of slavery and international arbitration and disarmament.He died on October 30, 1910 in Heiden where he had lived since he went bankrupt. He was 82 years.

Why they are called Red Cross Societies

These societies are called Red Cross Societies because of the emblem - a red cross on a white ground. What is the significance of this emblem? The cross has no religious significance. The emblem is the reverse of the Swiss national flag - a white cross on a red ground. This emblem was adopted as a tribute to Switzerland, the motherland of Henri Dunant, the founder of these societies. However, Muslim countries were not in favour of the emblem as the cross is the symbol of Christianity. So, at the request of a number of Muslim countries, the Crescent replaced the cross. The Crescent and the Red Cross are equally recognized as the emblem of these humanitarian societies. The Geneva Conventions in 1949 gave them equal recognition.

The emblem - the red cross or the red crescent - shows that persons wearing the emblem or any objects with that emblem belong to the movement - the national Red Cross Society or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRS). The use of the emblem is for protection.At a time of war, the emblem is reserved for the armed forces and objects belonging to the movement. (ICRC and national RCSs) and for hospitals and other civilian medical units. It is on record that in April 1942, when the Japanese bombed Colombo, they also bombed the Angoda hospital despite there being a Red Cross painted large and clear on the roof.

Today in Sri Lanka the Red Cross is misused. It has been taken by pharmacists and some medical practitioners as a symbol to locate the selling points of medical drugs or the places of their practice.

Sri Lanka Red Cross Society

The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society has a history going back 75 years. The first R.C. Society was established way back in 1936 as a branch of the British R.C. Society during the outbreak of the Malaria epidemic in the mid 1930s. Today the SLRCS is one of the largest NGOs with a membership around 15,000, operating countrywide with a large band of volunteers serving all communities without any racial, religious or ethnic bias and with no material benefits to themselves. They give First Aid where and when needed, organise blood donation campaigns, trace missing persons, transport dead bodies of civilians.

They provide training in First Aid, disaster preparedness and management too. They also give various services to those affected by conflict and natural disasters. This volunteer service is a worthy contribution to our society.

- Sumana Saparamadu