The provincial president of the Spanish Red Cross in Malaga, Luis Utrilla, and the provincial coordinator, Samuel Linares, today took stock of the plan of action Red Cross Responds in the province, a response to the health and social emergency caused by COVID- 19. 25,406 people have been served by this organization in this province since March 14, the day the Government of Spain declared the State of Alarm, through 35,813 interventions.
The action of the Red Cross is now oriented largely to the coverage of basic needs, although putting emphasis on addressing vulnerability through a comprehensive intervention. As of May 12, 5,630 financial aid and more than 5,000 food, hygiene, household cleaning or medicine kits have been delivered. More than 17,000 social information calls have been carried out, and biomedical and health follow-ups have been carried out on more than 5,000 people.
The Red Cross has also treated 125 people in accommodation in shelters and emergency centers in the province during confinement. In addition, it has provided nearly 600 online educational accompaniments for children in social difficulties at home and has supported more than a hundred children with educational materials, tablets and Internet connection. Likewise, the Red Cross Employment Plan has continued in these two months with its activity by videoconferences, supporting more than 250 people with information on the new demands of the labor market and more than 100 with job orientation. All thanks to the mobilization of more than 1,200 volunteers.
The Red Cross will continue to carry out all the aforementioned actions and the recovery phase of these people will join them, focusing their efforts on the educational, training and employment part.
The first balance of 2020 is marked by a more agile intervention by the Red Cross to respond to the inequalities caused by the COVID-19 health crisis. The number of people served in Social Intervention projects almost tripled with respect to the first four months of 2019: 11,403 from January to April last year; 29,274 in the same period of 2020.
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