Resources for journalists
Find out how to contact our media team and get an overview of our work and what we can comment on to the media. Find links to stories and other resources.
Contact us
Email media.comms@redcross.org.nz
Or call 04 495 0139
Commenting in the media
New Zealand Red Cross is happy to speak to reporters about our work in any of our roles outlined below. However, as a neutral and impartial organisation, we are often not able to comment about the decisions or activities of other people or organisations. We take a neutral position because our main role is to help people — if we take sides or offer judgement, it can jeopardise our ability to do our work.
Read our fundamental principles
Useful links
What we do
New Zealand Red Cross works to help vulnerable people all over Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. Our focus areas are refugee resettlement, disaster response, international programmes including international humanitarian law (IHL), and some additional community programmes.
Refugee resettlement
Our role is to support former refugees as they rebuild their lives in this country. We have contracts with the government to help resettle refugees in 8 settlement locations. We also provide employment support in all 13 settlement locations around Aotearoa. We aren’t part of the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, and we don’t make decisions about who can come here, and when and where they might settle — contact Immigration New Zealand for this type of information.
Disaster and emergency preparedness and response
We have 20 Disaster Welfare and Support Teams (DWST) around the country made up of around 300 trained volunteers. During a disaster our teams may be called up to support the response in partnership with other agencies. Our role is usually to provide practical and emotional support to affected people, assess their needs, and assist in a Civil Defence Centre. We also work to help communities prepare for disaster, largely through our Good and Ready programme and our Hazard App.
International
We work to support people in need around the world in several ways. We have a team of more than 100 technical experts ‘on call’ in our International Delegate Programme ready to be sent to assist in crisis areas. They are highly trained in emergency response and include professionals such as engineers, nurses and IT specialists.
We support Pacific National Societies in a range of initiatives. These include helping build resilience, such as through first aid training, so they can better respond to disasters and providing personnel and relief supplies when a disaster strikes.
We run special appeals to fundraise so New Zealanders can support the response to disaster and conflict-related crises anywhere in the world.
First Aid training
We train more than 70,000 people each year in first aid. We can speak to journalists about anything to do with physical and psychological first aid and give visual demonstrations.
Meals on Wheels
New Zealand Red Cross is contracted by DHBs to deliver more than 600,000 meals each year around the country. This is an additional community service we offer made possible by the work of 2,500 volunteers.
Restoring Family Links
We have a small team to help people who have separated from family due to conflict, disaster or migration. We use our international networks to try and connect people to missing family.
Red Cross Shops
We have more than 50 Red Cross Shops around the country that sell both pre-loved and new items. All profits from Red Cross Shops help provide humanitarian aid and support in local communities and around the world.
Guidance on international humanitarian law
New Zealand Red Cross has a role as an advocate and educator in International Humanitarian Law — which protects civilians and others who are not part of the fighting during a conflict. Under IHL, journalists on assignment in areas of armed conflict must be respected and protected.
International Humanitarian Law information
It’s important journalists working in conflict zones understand IHL to both support their own safety and so their reporting can promote a better public understanding of the rules around armed conflicts.
New Zealand Red Cross has created a brief guide to IHL for journalists and the British Red Cross Handbook contains more detailed information.
Read the New Zealand Red Cross IHL guide for journalists
The British Red Cross' Handbook for Media Professionals
ICRC operates a 24-hour hotline for journalists, their families and the media organisations they work for, to request assistance if they are wounded, detained or missing. ICRC Hotline — +41 79 217 32 85 or email: press@icrc.org
About the Red Cross Movement
With a network of more than 80 million people, we’re the largest humanitarian organisation in the world.
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is dedicated to preventing and alleviating human suffering due to conflict and emergencies such as epidemics, floods and earthquakes.
It’s not a single organization but is made up of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the 192 individual National Societies, including New Zealand Red Cross. Each has its own legal identity and role.
The IFRC acts as a secretariat to the National Societies and provides humanitarian assistance focused on disasters, health and community care.
The ICRC is focused on protecting the victims of international and civil armed conflict around the globe.
“We are present in virtually every community on earth.” IFRC website
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