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Young people can have a real influence when given the opportunity to do good. After receiving funding, coaching and support from the Limitless youth innovation programme, hundreds of Red Cross and Red Crescent youth innovators have powerful impact stories to tell us.

Impact Stories

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Innovation Stories

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“The power of digital media allows youth to work with no limits. Our digital campaigns have reached more than 65,000 users.”

“The power of digital media allows youth to work with no limits. Our digital campaigns have reached more than 65,000 users.”

by | Aug 23, 2022

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as a youth volunteer from the Indonesian Red Cross, I was seeing many young people in Indonesia having more and more digital activities, all day long, including online school, and they were scrolling social media continuously. Some of them were becoming less productive, and some started having mental health issues. Social media became the youth’s top activity in the digital space. 

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Solferino FutureFellows Programme 2022

An innovative professional development program for emerging leaders of the network of the IFRC
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Recent Events

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Planet:Red Summit showcased the power of many

Planet:Red Summit showcased the power of many

by | Oct 28, 2021 |

On October 12-14, 2021, we came together as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and organised a global, virtual summit Planet:Red. The focus of this summit was on two of the greatest threats in contemporary times, the climate crisis and pandemics, and also on stepping up the Movement’s local action to drive global impact on the humanitarian dimensions of both. 

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Leadership voices

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Are we doing enough to prepare for the Future?

Are we doing enough to prepare for the Future?

by | Mar 25, 2022

The global picture is quite grim – pandemic, protracted conflicts, impacts of climate crisis, growing inequalities and polarisation, increases in gender-based violence and drastic worsening of mental health. In addition, the crisis in Ukraine has brought another layer of uncertainty, complexity and heart-breaking human suffering with global implications. 

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To be the best partner for the communities we support, we must anticipate, adapt and innovate.  Shifting Sands is a growing network of fringe thinkers, futurists, innovators and leaders from around the globe.

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Solferino Academy Selection

A selection of the best events from the Red Cross Red Crescent Network focusing on innovation, foresight and transformation. A curated collection from the Solferino Academy superstars and delivered straight to you. You’ll never have to miss a cool event again.

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The Solferino Academy is an initiative of the IFRC and its member national societies that aims to help the Red Cross and Red Crescent network anticipate, understand and adapt to trends and emerging issues

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Our Major Partner is the Croce Rossa Italiana (Italian Red Cross)
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Thought pieces

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Why do we need a glocalized development? Way to decentralize aid

Why do we need a glocalized development? Way to decentralize aid

by | Jul 27, 2022

It has been six years since the humanitarian agenda has reached a milestone after the UN Secretary General’s call for turning locally-led humanitarian action at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. This was a call to change the function of global humanitarian system as the international humanitarian actors are falling back to meet up with the increasing needs derived from protracted natural hazards and long-lasting armed conflicts. As the costs of services increase and the high level of risks restrict international actors’ actions, aid has come to a bottleneck.

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Digitalisation in Humanitarian Action: the path forward

Digitalisation in Humanitarian Action: the path forward

by | Jul 26, 2022

As crucial key enablers in delivering effective and timely humanitarian aid to the people in need, digital technologies allow aid organisations to improve collaboration and communication while enabling the delivery of aid more efficiently; rendering a tailored emergency response based on the needs of the beneficiaries. In this scope, digitalisation is one of the Movement’s prioritized topics because it is rapidly shaping how our humanitarian operations and assistance activities are carried out; therefore, impacting how the humanitarian sector is serving the aforementioned affected populations. To stay up-to-date and relevant in different contexts, the humanitarian sector is testing and adopting digital technologies on a multitude of different levels in order to improve the speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of humanitarian operations.

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Baking Social Impact Business into Sustainable Humanitarian Financing Model

Baking Social Impact Business into Sustainable Humanitarian Financing Model

by | Jul 26, 2022

How can we better co-design and prototype emerging technology with communities at the center? Over the past year, Nepal Red Cross, Cameroon Red Cross, Nesta UK, and IFRC Solferino Academy explored how emerging technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI), could support the effective delivery of humanitarian work by involving communities in the design in two very different contexts. This project was done during a global pandemic and ongoing emergencies with the everyday complexities of humanitarian response. 

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Insights and Inspirations

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Case Studies

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Disaster Preparedness through Virtual Reality

The Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross Society

The intensity of the natural phenomena in the Caribbean has increased in recent years. For example, since 2017, three category five hurricanes (Irma, María, and Dorian) have caused considerable damage to all the islands in the region. These experiences and various recent studies reaffirm the importance and need to work with communities in raising awareness and developing capacities to prepare for and respond to disasters.

Innovating to identify the most effective social change mechanisms to engage Roma communities

Romanian Red Cross

In Romania, a large proportion of the Roma population faces structural vulnerabilities characterized by the complex and continuous ethnic and intergenerational dimension of poverty. The Roma often live in marginalised, economically and socially vulnerable communities, and this has led to social isolation, causing additional difficulties, especially for Roma children in school. According to the Romanian census conducted in 2011, 621,573 Romanians (about 3% of the population) belong to the Roma ethnic group although the 2010 Council of Europe data mentions a Romanian Roma population ranging between 1,200,000 and 2,500,000 people.

Support for women’s health and autonomy

Red Cross of Benin

Red Cross of Benin has increasingly explored new and innovative approaches to try and tackle highly complex social and development issues facing people in the country. One particular challenge that they have turned to new approaches for is the significant lack of health information available for women and girls in Benin and the struggles they face in achieving some measure of financial independence. Red Cross of Benin already supports a large number of women’s and mothers’ groups with first aid and other activities, but they wanted to try a new approach to address some of the systemic challenges facing the women. With the support of the Empress Shôken Fund, which is notably helping National Societies experiment with innovative approaches, they have begun to explore how to develop social and micro-entrepreneurship approaches with women’s groups.

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