Kenya Red Cross celebrates 240,000 volunteers

The Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) on Thursday celebrated 240,000 volunteers through the Kenya Red Cross Society Volunteer awards 2022.

The event dubbed “solidarity through volunteering”, highlighted the power of society’s collective human activity to drive positive change through volunteerism.

26 volunteers received awards according to 15 different categories.

KRCS Kisumu branch and Edward Odero from Nairobi received the community service of the year award.

Mount Kenya University Parklands campus received an award for the university chapter of the year.

KRCS Taita Taveta branch won the County Branch of the year award.

The Youth Volunteer of the year award was presented to Dida Daniel from Samburu county.

Step 30 International, Tech Kids, Last Resort, Ramgharia Youth Association, Food for Life, Cycle for Life, Parklands Mosque, and Madrasa Trust all received awards for Implementing Partners of the year.

Moi Siongiroi Girls High School, Bomet won the Junior Red Cross award.

Former KRCS  governor Francis Masika and Joe Wilberforce from Busia county were both presented with the special recognition award.

Gideon Rotich from Bomet county received the Michael Sululu volunteer of the year award.

Mwanamuma Swale from Kwale county also received A.A Molu Lifetime Achievement award.

KRCS Nakuru county branch was honoured as the Covid-19 Team of the year.

The 2022 Inclusion award was rewarded to CBM- Global.

Osoro Robert from West Pokot received the Community Health volunteer of the year award.

Mike Otieno from Mombasa county received the 2022 Innovation award.

The PR Humanitarian award was presented to Wycliffe Wamira from Siaya county and Edward Odero from Nairobi.

Yunus Mohammed from Garissa received the Restoring Family links award.

Kenya Red Cross secretary general Asha Mohammed congratulated the volunteers for the remarkable work that they have done throughout the year.

She also commended them for being at the forefront of extending support and serving communities during the ongoing drought within the country and the past general election that was held.

“These are just two of the issues they dealt with but there are many others including some horrible road accidents, collapsed buildings, and many others that they have been involved in,” Mohammed said.

UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya Stephen Jackson also applauded the volunteers for their service towards the different communities in the country.

He said that solidarity is a powerful human force that can change the world.

“As Theologian Prof. Marie Giblin puts it; Solidarity takes place when a person or community not only sees a need and acts but commits to following up, to endeavour to see that action is taken to improve the other's situation for the long run,” he said.

As the world also celebrated World AIDS Day, Mohammed said that the theme was to equalize which calls for access to services for all those who need them.

She celebrated the community health volunteers and all the workers under the various organisations that have made volunteerism possible.

“In Kenya, our focus of World AIDS day is the triple threat of teen HIV infections, teen pregnancies, and sexual and gender-based violence,” she said.

“This is becoming a major problem and driver of the epidemic and it is a challenge to all of us to redouble our efforts to save our teenagers.”

Kenya has in a decade recorded an increase in the number of new HIV infections by more than 2,000 from 32,027 in 2020 to 34,540 in 2021.

This is an increase of 7.3 per cent, with 10 counties accounting for 57 per cent of all the new infections.

The 10 include Nairobi, Kisumu, Homa Bay, Siaya, Migori, Nakuru, Mombasa, Kakamega, Kisii and Uasin Gishu.

According to the World AIDS report 2022, 8 out of every 10 new HIV infections occurred among adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 years with 20,505 of all new HIV infections occurring among women and girls.