Message by Red Cross Society of Seychelles president Kisnan Tamatave to commemorate World Red Cross Day 2018 World Red Cross Day 2018 |08 May 2018

‘A smile is a universal sign of happiness, comfort or satisfaction’

“A smile is a universal sign of happiness, comfort or satisfaction,” Seychelles Red Cross Society president Kisnan Tamatave has said in his message to commemorate World Red Cross Day today, May 8.

Like each year, the Red Cross Society of Seychelles joins Red Cross and Red Crescent societies across the world to organise activities to highlight the unique role of the movement and this year’stheme is ‘Smile’.

Mr Tamatave said that “a smile is a universal sign of happiness, comfort or satisfaction”.

“For a volunteer, it means a job well done.  For someone affected by a crisis, it can mean someone is ready and willing to help. We want to harness the power of this symbol to celebrate the dedication and the impact the Seychelles Red Cross, our volunteers and staff in our communities.

“We are a volunteer organisation and we firmly believe in preparedness to respond to crisis faced by our communities based on our mandate as an auxiliary body to government agencies in humanitarian crisis. Through continuous training and capacity building efforts, we strive to maintain our ability for early response and access, acceptance in communities, cost effectiveness, accountability, and link with disaster risk reduction through collaboration with our partners with objective to reduce the impact of humanitarian crisis,” said Mr Tamatave.

He added that Red Cross Society members are local actors and through their actions, they make a difference and they have reasons to smile.

Mr Tamatave called for a need to share the same message in our communities.

“Our communities are faced with many challenges and as community members we should take responsibility and ownership of such challenges. Every member of our communities needs to be a local actor and assist government, as facilitator and enabler of different programmers to overcome those challenges.

“I take recent statistics on heroin addiction in Seychelles as an example where we can all be local actors. This issue is a societal issue which we should all be concerned with and contribute our part to overcome it. As parents we should ensure that our kids are well aware of the issue and that they keep away from it, as educators we should ensure that our youth are oriented towards activities which are physically and mentally appropriate for their development, as citizens we can be a mentor or a volunteer in facilitating one of the activities, as a member of the community we should alert authorities on the danger zones, as an employer we should assist government in its rehabilitation programme to reintegrate the addicts in society. Even if you choose to be a spectator, you should support constructively and encourage others who are willing to make a difference. I salute all efforts made by NGOs, civil society, churches, other groups and individuals who are working with government agencies to face the monster,” he said.

The Seychelles Red Cross Society president explained that members of our local communities should be local actors and in doing so we should have reasons to smile and that our society has evolved.

“We now face a situation where human interactions are considerably reducing. Technology has made it possible for us to communicate through the different social media. This is good as we have a platform to share our ideas, expertise, news, stories which can bring us closer or make a difference in the lives of our followers. In doing so we have reason to smile.

“Unfortunately, the coin has two sides. Social media is also being used as a tool to market immoral activities, to promote violence or to reduce human values. This is very apparent in Seychelles and it is a very worrying situation. It has reached a point that pictures of accident victims are being posted or even uploaded live on social media platforms. This is very inhumane and the Red Cross Society of Seychelles strongly condemns such actions and urge legislators to come up with appropriate legislation to ensure respect for other human beings and protection to human dignity,” stressed Mr Tamatave.

Mr Tamatave has also thanked the government for assisting the Red Cross Society of Seychelles in the implementation of its programmes and activities and also thanked the volunteers and staff for all their efforts and contributions in ensuring that the activities of the national society are conducted in conformance with the movement’s seven fundamental principle - humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.

“Without you the Red Cross society would not exist.

“With a ‘Smile”, I wish you all a happy Red Cross Day!”