New Zealand Red Cross Responds to Cyclones in Australia
www.redcross.org.nz
NEWS RELEASE
20 February 2015
New Zealand Red Cross Responds to Cyclones in Australia
New Zealand Red Cross is sending three disaster management volunteers to Queensland tonight, as two tropical cyclones hit Australia.
The volunteers will be helping the Australian Red Cross support the needs of people in evacuation and welfare centres who have been affected by Tropical Cyclone Marcia.
Nurse Stephanie Campbell-Wilson and volunteer manager Heather Moore from Hamilton will be joined by Doug Winter, a warehouse logistician from Christchurch. The three volunteers are highly experienced members of the New Zealand Red Cross Disaster and Welfare Support Team in Hamilton and Christchurch.
The volunteers are being deployed as part of a New Zealand Red Cross scholarship set up following the Christchurch earthquakes, to ensure emergency management volunteers have first-hand experience in large-scale emergencies.
This is the first deployment as part of the scholarship and will help to build the capacity and knowledge of disaster management volunteers in New Zealand, whilst providing much needed assistance during emergencies.
The volunteers depart from Auckland tonight to Brisbane for seven days.