The State of Readiness for Belize Red Cross

Lily Bowman

The pandemic has put a significant strain on the financial and physical resources of the Red Cross.  According to Bowman, the state of readiness includes soliciting donations from the private sector. 

Lily Bowman, Exec. Dir., Belize Red Cross

“On an ongoing basis, we solicit donations from the business community for all the programs of the national society.  As you may be aware, just coming out of the debt of COVID-19 where all our income generation efforts were closed for over twelve months.  It really set back the national society financially, but we have had very good response from donors locally, as well as the international federation and other movements, Red Cross movement partners when it comes to the response for COVID and the response for floods.  So we know that funds are available in the event of an emergency and we will be able to access those but on an ongoing basis we seek the donations and support from our… either in kind, technical or donation from so many people here in Belize, just in the event that we will have a disaster, that’s one of our programs that we would be funding, as well as our other programs that are ongoing.”