President Faure meets representatives of Red Cross Society of Seychelles |03 September 2020

President Danny Faure received Kisnan Tamatave, the president of the Red Cross Society of Seychelles, and secretary general Marie-May Bastienne at the State House yesterday afternoon.

Speaking to the press after the meeting, Mr Tamatave said the aim was mainly to update the president on the society’s involvement during the Covid-19 pandemic and also to put forward the constraints, especially budgetary concerns, in executing the different programmes.

“We have currently three staff and we need more, especially to make sure that we are able to maintain proper reporting about our projects to our donors. We do get some funding from the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Plateforme d’Intervention Régionale Océan Indien and we need to do an efficient reporting and our partners expect that from us. As it is, we are not able to perform to our expectation,” explained Mr Tamatave.

A press release from the Office of the President wrote that President Faure conveyed the country's sincere appreciation to the Red Cross Society of Seychelles (RCSS) for its commitment and continuous support, especially during the ongoing public health emergency where coming together and working in common purpose is key to ensuring our community and country remains safe.

“Today I would like to congratulate the Red Cross Society of Seychelles for its achievements and successful implementation of key community projects despite the challenges. It is this kind of determination and commitment that we encourage other organisations to adopt and our future generations to learn from,” said President Faure.

Currently, the RCSS has three paid staff and more than 100 volunteers.

“In order to fulfil our mandate, we must have the means and proper logistics. We have a vehicle dated 2004 which we are still using. Recently we lost a staff and now we are looking for more staff. We are in consultation with the Seychelles Employee Transition Scheme to have some people. RCSS does receive a subvention of R1.3 million from the government but this sum is not enough to support the whole programme,” noted Mr Tamatave.

The president of the RCSS also said that with Covid-19, many people came for help and this exceeded the society’s budget.

For the forthcoming elections, Mr Tamatave noted that they have a collaboration with the Electoral Commission of Seychelles where volunteers will be placed in the polling stations to help maintain social distancing. The volunteers are already being trained.

RCSS have various programmes such as training/emergency, disaster prevention and response, information/dissemination of International Humanitarian Law and health and prevention. Many of these programmes are being financed by their external partners such as International Federation of the Red Cross and La Croix Rouge Française which is based in Reunion Island.

Vidya Gappy