Across the Pacific, small Red Cross societies are often the first responders when cyclones, earthquakes, and health emergencies hit, but they frequently have only a handful of staff and limited resources. New Zealand Red Cross is helping these societies strengthen their disaster readiness, using the National Society Operational Readiness Check.

Since 1960, we’ve sent team members overseas on more than 1,000 assignments to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity on the front line.

When our International Delegate Lesley Jacobson arrived in Fiji to train first aid instructors from across the Pacific, she knew she was there to teach, but she didn’t expect how much she would learn too.

As a boy growing up in England’s southwest, Snowy Lintern wanted to be a sailor. “I ran away to sea as soon as I could.”

He joined the Royal Navy in 1987 and stayed for 25 years, during which he served in Iraq and deployed to Afghanistan. He’s been an armed forces delegate with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) since 2018 and is based in Tokyo, where he covers Asia-Pacific.

When a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck Vanuatu on 17 December it left an estimated 80,000 people grappling with its devastating impact.