We are used to severe frosts and snow storms. People are helping each other - sharing clothes and warmth. The Red Cross went to every family and to the hospital with their food and warm things and first aid kits. In other circumstances it would have been much more difficult to provide quick transportation and distribution of all the goods. But apart from that there are other remote settlements, particularly in the Far North of Yakutia, whose population live in a great need for humanitarian help.
Isolated communities struggle with extremely poor medical support, extremely expensive commodities.
They are suffering from outer migration leaving the most vulnerable population behind. For nearly a decade, the International Federation has been supporting people in Yakutia with socio economic and winter programmes, and support for victims of natural disasters. The local Red Cross, headed by Nadezhda Yegorova, is making an effort to grasp the momentum and strengthen its capacities. With the help of the strategic reforms implemented by the Russian Red Cross Central Committee, it managed to obtain strong support from the local government, has raised its profile, and it is starting to do its own local fund-raising. The International Federation and Russian Red Cross welcomed a donation recently of 350,000 US dollars from the Government of Yakutia.