Red Cross Nepal

At the end of 2016 the Nepal Red Cross So­ci­ety (NRCS), in col­lab­or­a­tion with the Ca­na­dian Red Cross, dis­trib­uted 1709 WakaWaka Powers in el­ev­en earth­quake af­fected dis­tricts in Nepal. The dis­tri­bu­tion of WakaWa­kas is part of their Earth­quake Re­cov­ery Op­er­a­tion (ERO) pro­gram. The NRCS dis­trib­uted the Powers among Fe­male Com­munity Health Vo­lun­teers (FCHVs). These vo­lun­teers aim at in­creas­ing the health of people in the re­mote com­munit­ies by giv­ing health ad­vice as well as im­prov­ing the par­ti­cip­a­tion of wo­men in com­munity activ­it­ies and or­gan­iz­a­tions.

Most of the vil­lages where the NRCS works are re­mote areas in the Hi­m­alay­as. This means that the health vo­lun­teers need to walk long dis­tances by foot, even when it’s dark. The WakaWa­kas en­sure the wo­men’s safety while they are do­ing their work. The wo­men can use the light while they are walk­ing in the dark and the WakaWaka en­ables them to stay con­nec­ted with their mo­bile phones at all times. This is very im­port­ant in cases of health emer­gen­cies or per­son­al cir­cum­stances.