VEOLIA ENVIRON. : The French Red Cross and the Veolia Environnement Foundation renew their partnership for five years
01/31/2012 | 06:48am Paris, January 31, 2012.
The French Red Cross and the Veolia Environnement
Foundation have renewed their partnership for a further
five years. Started in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch devastated
Nicaragua, the aim of the partnership is to provide
populations in difficulty with access to the essential
services of drinking water, energy and waste collection.
Following a disaster or as part of a long-term program,
Veolia Environnement's corporate foundation offers the
French Red Cross, and in particular its emergency response
teams, its equipment (water treatment and distribution
units), technical expertise and human resources.
Through this partnership, the French Red Cross has the
benefit of a durable system of volunteering skills that can
be called on in crisis periods, along with equipment that
provides rapid access to safe water. However, these same
skills can also be made available during non-emergency
periods when a lack of safe water requires specific
expertise.
Over the past 14 years, 80 volunteers from the Veolia
Environnement Foundation have left on missions with the Red
Cross, assisted in France by a similar number of volunteers
providing logistics support. The time volunteered adds up
to 1,700 days on the ground during 23 missions. These
include Haiti where, just after the earthquake that took
place on January 12, 2010, the French Red Cross was one of
the main suppliers of drinking water at assembly points in
the capital Port-au-Prince. At 66 sites, water reserves and
distribution bars were installed to provide a daily supply
to some 180,000 people. The Veolia Environnement
Foundation continues to provide its expertise and financial
aid in Haiti through the project to improve the water
supply network in Petit-Goâve, the former capital, which
was badly damaged by the earthquake.
In similar fashion, in 2008, following a first emergency
intervention in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital that was
badly hit by cholera, the Veolia Environnement Foundation
then provided support to the French Red Cross for two years
in a wide-reaching program to rehabilitate the
country's main water production plants.
In September 2011, volunteers from the Veolia Environnement
Foundation also accompanied an emergency response team from
the French Red Cross in Chad to deal with a sudden surge in
cholera, the worst since 1971. The Foundation volunteers
provided a safe water supply and managed the waste from the
health centers.
The French Red Cross
The French Red Cross is an association governed by the
Act of 1901, its fundamental principles, and recognized
as a charitable organisation committed to the fields of
emergency response and first aid, social action, health,
training, and international solidarity.
The French Red Cross works to improve the situation of
vulnerable people, particularly victims of natural and
technological disasters, and seeks to find each
beneficiary the conditions for a dignified existence. To
truly make a difference, it favours, when possible,
support towards empowerment and autonomy of such
individuals.
The association is present in about thirty countries for
both emergency response and for the implementation of
development programs. In coordination with the
international network of other national societies of the
Red Cross or Red Crescent, it helps victims of national
disasters, rehabilitates systems of access to drinking
water, supports housing reconstruction, supports the
fight against HIV..., maintaining, as always, its goal,
to support vulnerable people by creating the conditions
for humanitarian action with long term effects.
International action key figures:
2, 628, 500 people helped throughout the world
Intervention in 31 countries
93 undergoing projects
145 staff permanently abroad and 2, 000 permanent staff
in France
