Strollerderby : Red Cross

Second Haitian School Collapses

Kate Tuttle — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:28:00 GMT

In what has been a devastating week in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, a second school has collapsed in Haiti. This time no children died, but it only adds to the horror that befell Haiti last Friday, when the La Promesse school in Petion-ville collapsed, killing (at current count) 93, most of them children.

Nine children were hurt in the second collapse, at Grace Divine Primary and Secondary School in Port-au-Prince, and two children were injured at another nearby school, when they panicked because they thought their building was shaking and about to collapse.

The minister who owned and built Grace Divine will no doubt be prosecuted for his criminally shoddy construction practices, but there's no bringing back those kids. For a country crippled by poverty and ravaged this year by storms and flooding, Haiti has just suffered its cruelest blow yet. Americans are justifiably freaking out as we enter what looks like it'll be a sustained recession, but I hope those of us who still have a buck or two to spare will consider spreading it around. Red Cross International is a good place to start.

9-11 Charities Shut Their Doors

Amy Kuras — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:33:00 GMT

Remember all that money that poured into 9-11 related charities after the terrorist attacks on that day? Remember the telethon, the concert, all the fundraising?

Well, that money is drying up. Almost seven years after the attacks, the Red Cross distributed the last $40 million to 26 groups it still funded, down from the $1 billion it had right after the attacks that went to more than 100 organizations.

Those groups have slowly gone away as funding has waned. Many donors felt a sense of needing to make a one time response but question the need for ongoing funding.

But organizations that help kids of 9-11 victims say that some are just now beginning to express their feelings about losing their parents in the terrorist attacks, especially some of the younger boys.

It makes sense that kids, especially those who were pretty young when their parents died, are just now getting the language and thought processes to truly grasp what happened. And while such things as music lessons for the families of victims might have run their course, I hate the idea that counseling services, for example, are beginning to shut their doors due to lack of funds.

An estimated 6,000 kids lost parents in the 9-11 attacks. I have to think that losing a parent in such a tragic and public fashion would be the kind of thing you might need to seek help for, long after the money runs out. Lots of us donated money in some desperate attempt to feel like we were doing something to help in the face of such a frightening event. It's kind of disheartening to realize there are still needs yet to be met.

No Hitting On April 30 (for Canadians, Anyway)

Amy Kuras — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:31:00 GMT

How I love Canada. Living across the river from such a progressive nation, it brings into sharp contrast the ways in which our two nations differ and ours often comes out on the losing end (ONE YEAR partially-paid maternity leave, people).

Here's another check in the "Canada is awesome" column: the Canadian Red Cross is designating April 30 as No Hitting Day as a way to teach parents the harmful consequences of using physical discipline on their children and to promote alternatives to hitting.

More then 70 percent of assault injuries against children are the result of physical discipline that escalated, according to the Red Cross. Many parents don’t especially want to hit, but lack role models or training about disciplining in other ways.

One of the things I like about this is that it doesn’t deny the need to discipline children. Much anti-spanking rhetoric is eye-rollingly simplistic, written by people who it appear have never met a child, or at least never stared down a hugely willful three-year-old.

The Red Cross's advice mostly speaks to controlling your temper. Some of the suggestions are to put it mildly NOT HELPFUL when said willful three year old is running laps around the preschool classroom giggling at your frantic attempts to get her to put her damn coat on and leave, say, as a completely and utterly hypothetical example I just made up clean out of my head. Others, though, are – like making yourself go to the other side of the room or another area in the house if you feel yourself about to snap.

If there's a parent out there who hasn’t at least once felt the urge to spank – well, you’re ridiculously highly evolved and likely a huge bore at arties. For the rest of us, though, committing to learning better methods will help both our kids and ourselves.

Want to Learn CPR? Have Your Kid Teach You!

Karen Murphy — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:34:00 GMT

Every parent should actually know CPR. You just never know when you'll need a thing like that, and as much as I hate to imagine the circumstances for needing it, they can happen and you'd want to be prepared.

So we've got that out of the way. The next question is, how do you learn CPR? Sure, you can take a class through the Red Cross maybe or in various other places (The American Heart Association gives classes, for instance). It's typically a four-hour class and that's been the standard for a long time.

It turns out there's a better way. Two better ways, in fact:

1. A study has shown that a 30-minute hands-on-intensive course was as good or better than the four-hour class. Each participant, though, got their own Resusci-Annie instead of sharing with 6-8 other people, and it was the hands-on aspect that made the difference.

2. Another study showed that 7th graders who were taught CPR and then went home armed with a DVD did an awesome job of teaching other family members. Which could be you. (Of course, the 7th graders all lived in Denmark; is there a natural aptitude for CPR in Scandinavian countries?)

Sure, I'd love for my kid to teach me CPR (though I already know it); it'd be an esteem-builder for him and a refresher course for me. I figure that the more people know CPR the better.