Sporting a red face mask, Queen Letizia chaired a meeting of the Spanish Red Cross Thursday to hear more about the organisation’s Red Cross RESPONDE Plan against COVID-19.
As the largest humanitarian operation in the history of the Spanish Red Cross, the plan has helped more than 2.5 million people to date. According to Casa Real, the organisation’s “comprehensive response to the pandemic makes it possible to cover the population’s basic needs, and includes different interventions in areas such as emergencies, health care, education, social inclusion, psychosocial support, or the improvement of access to employment.”
Held at the headquarters of the Spanish Red Cross, the meeting welcomed attendees both face-to-face and virtually and included the organisation’s president, Javier Senent, among other staff members.
Queen Letizia heard a presentation by the president about the past six months of the pandemic, along with information on the response by volunteers. More than 59,000 people have volunteered to help the Spanish Red Cross’s COVID-19 response.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that the Red Cross is part of a huge wave of solidarity in which thousands of people have been involved,” Senent said. “We have to be able to continue channelling the solidarity of all the people who want to help and combine responses aimed at facing the health emergency while addressing the consequences of the economic crisis. For this reason, we encourage all the people who want to join the Red Cross volunteering to participate in the response to these problems.”
Queen Letizia and the meeting’s participants discussed the response of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to the pandemic in the world as a whole, hearing a presentation by Xavier Castellanos, part of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies National Society Development and Operations team.
The Red Cross is now beginning the second phase of its RESPONDE Plan against COVID-19, “marked by the socioeconomic impact and the deep crisis that the pandemic is leaving.”
To date, close to 75,000 people have been assisted with the Red Cross’s employment program, but the organisation plans to intensify these efforts in their second phase.
