Nepal Red Cross Society celebrated the fourth National First Aid Day with various programmes throughout the country on 10th September. Celebrated this year with the theme "First aid with vulnerable (marginalized) people," the Day was organized with the objective of helping the public to maintain healthy and safe behaviour and raising their awareness on adopting proper measures of first aid to save lives of the wounded and sick.

The major event of the celebration was held this year outside Kathmandu valley, in Pokhara of Kaski district. Red Cross volunteers, first aid providers and students took a rally around the town of Pokhara for awareness raising purpose. The rally converted into a mass meeting in which Secretary General of the NRCS Mr. Dev Ratna Dhakhwa and other high level officials reiterated the importance of first aid. Mr. Dhakhwa said that all sectors of the society need to have knowledge of first aid though it sounds like an ordinary thing. "It is useful in every step of our life," he stated. In the same gathering, Chairman of Community Development Committee Mr. Saput Bahadur Karki informed that demand of first aid training was in high from the organizations outside Red Cross. Executive Director Mr. Badri Khanal and Kaski Branch President Mr. Raghunath Adhikari called attention to the need to reach the community level people with more effective first aid service.

The day was also marked with various programmes in many other districts. The Palpa District Branch provided street drama training to 28 students of eight schools. The trainees also performed street dramas on first aid on the First Aid Day. Jhapa District Branch provided first aid training to RC volunteers and other organizations to mark the day. Many other branches also celebrated the day organizing various functions to raise public awareness on first aid.

Ms. Bishnu awarded best first aid volunteer

As part of celebrating he First Aid Day, the Nepal Red Cross awarded Ms. Bishnu Sinjali of Palpa district as the best first aid volunteer of the year. Started with the objective of encouraging the first aid volunteers in their work, the prize was given to Ms. Sinjali for her effective first aid service that she provided to community people in her village of Pipaldanda.

Youths make action plan to fight discrimination

30 youths of four districts gathered in Chitwan of Nepal on 26-27 September have concluded their youth camp preparing action plan to fight discrimination in their respective districts. The youths coming from various backgrounds discussed the issues on which they might be discriminated and or they might discriminate others. Based on them, they prepared an action plan for a year and expressed their commitment to accomplish the task.

The youths of Chitwan, Tanahun, Nawalparasi and Rupandehi districts,who had participated in the youth camp organized in 2004, had gathered to review what they did in the past year and make future plans. Led by a district level volunteer or a teacher sponsor, the youths have committed to fighting all types of discrimination that might hurt human dignity. They will organize awareness campaigns, perform street dramas, organize competitions like elocution on the topic of discrimination and address the issue of discrimination based on caste, religion, gender, health, wealth and the like.

Through fighting discrimination, they will be working for the protection of human dignity and promoting the principle of Humanity. The camp was organized under Humanitarian Values Promotion Programme.