What does the Red Cross Red Crescent mean to you?

Each day of the Youth Meeting, the Our World. Your Move. team are asking youth a new question. Today's question is 'What does the Red Cross Red Crescent mean to you?'

For me, the Red Cross means hope. It means possibility, compassion and opportunity. Red Cross is the possibility to create a better community, a better society and a better world. This movement gives us the chance to help others, and to improve the lives of the vulnerable. For many people in the world violence, poverty, sickness, war or hardship are a daily reality. The Red Cross Red Crescent works to alleviate suffering and in doing so, makes the world a better place for all, not just those directly affected.

To me, the Red Cross Red Crescent also means compassion and empathy. It means reaching out to people, it means volunteering to help those in need. It is the understanding that there is no greater way to help people than to help them to help themselves. It is knowing that despite all our differences we are one, we are humanity. And it is this understanding that gives us the strength of self to be compassionate and appreciate our diversity.

Red Cross Red Crescent is also an opportunity. I learnt as a child, growing up watching my brother dying, that the smallest act of kindness can have a profound affect. Growing up surrounded by sickness and seeing other children struggling to live on a daily basis, I realised the value of life at a young age, and the importance of helping others. Red Cross gives me the opportunity to do this, to make a difference to people's lives and in doing so make the world that little bit better.

For me Red Cross means the world, and I wouldn't want it any other way.