Dispatches from Bangkok. Challenges in a Mega City !

Early morning in Sukhumvit Road Bangkok

After being in Kuala Lumpur for 4 days last week, Jakarta for the weekend and now in Bangkok, it is such a joy to be in this vibrant and hospitable city.


Bangkok is one of my favourite cities, having first visited in March 1975.
This morning I went for a walk. Here is my dispatch:

At first light I head out of my hotel on Soi 5, Sukhumvit. I had only gone 50 metres when I saw three heavily armed soldiers, chatting peacefully to locals. One is drinking a cup of coffee. A tourist with a camera, quietly creeps closer to soldiers, and snaps a picture. Our security instructions tell us not to turn right as the stand-off between the anti-Govt Red Shirts and Govt are taking place not far away. On May 8 two Thai policemen were killed and 13 wounded in a gun and grenade attacks. The headlines in the papers this morning announce that the PM has told the Reds to leave today. I hope we don’t see more clashes in this usually peaceful city, but I have a feeling it will come to a head in the next 24 hours.


The traffic builds up early morning on Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok

I go onto Sukhumvit Road and walk by the entrance to Nana Station and head down towards Asok. First I thread my way through the sidewalk clothing market, next my nostrils are filled with spice-filled clouds of smoke billowing from barbecues cooking chicken, fish and other tasty looking morsels. The street is beginning to fill with people walking elegantly to work.

A young lady comes up to me and asks if I want a massage. I say no, but she persists, and puts her arm round my waist. I politely remove her arm and she goes away. It is just after 6 a.m.

There are more buskers and beggars on the streets than I recall on my last visit in 2009.



Foodstalls on the pavement serve delicious food.

Before the Westin hotel I am engulfed in more clouds of smoke coming from a bevy of people cooking breakfast on barbecues. I pass Asok station and turn left into Asok Road. A Monk in saffron robes has a bowl in his outstretched arms waiting for food. A Nun, 20 metres away, in a drab grey robe is also asking for food.

Suddenly I am in the midst of the fruit and vegetable market, where exotic mouth-watering fruits bunch, hang and attract. The jostling worsens as more the shoppers tangle with workers hurrying to offices and factories. Clangs, slams and crashes come from adjacent building sites. It's a busy city.

I am attracted by a sign outside an unusual building, and it reads 'Siam Culture Centre by Royal Appointment.' As opening hours were 9 a.m., I am not allowed in.

Outdoor side walk cafes serve food to hungry workers and beside, butchers chop meat, bakers roll dough and cooks stir huge woks.


A ticket seller on the roadside.

After a few kms, I retrace my steps back Soi 5 and go through the alley which connects to Soi 3. Three north African women, dressed in burhka and veils charge towards me like a rugby front row and I step aside. Men in long white robes and colourful head scarves and turbans drink coffee in small cafes. Many of the signs are in Arabic and most of the people are from the Middle east and North Africa.



A small flower market in Sukhumvit.

My early morning walk in Sukhumvit is over, and I go back to the hotel to prepare for the day. The second day of a conference of  preparing for our Red Cross programmes in South East Asia.

With troops and opposition factions at a standoff just down the road from my hotel, an increasingly polluted city, the water in the shower in the hotel a brownish colour and the jostling of people for space shows yet again that the escalating human vulnerability is among the many challenges facing people in cities and other densely populated areas around the globe. Yet the urban way of life also presents enormous opportunities and can serve as an engine of social inclusion, cultural expression, diversity and economic growth. But the challenges for the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are many.

Violence, poverty, food shortages, insufficient health care, (including a shortage of safe blood) inadequate access to water and sanitation are just some of the challenges facing city politicians, administrators and the Red Cross in these mega cities.

For the first time, more than 50% of the world’s population is living in urban areas, a figure that is forecast to rise to more than 60% in 2030. Cities in the developing world are expected to account for 95% of urban growth over the next two decades.

Last Saturday (May 8) in a small community in South Jakarta, I celebrated World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day, with the Jakarta Chapter of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI). We focussed attention on both the challenges and opportunities presented by urbanization. All around the world, National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are working with city leaders and civil society to address urban challenges by aiming at their root causes. They focus on promoting diversity, opposing discrimination, and joining in efforts to provide decent social services –including the high quality of blood donor service-- and to ensure that adequate protection, preventive health-care, education and disaster risk reduction measures are taken. Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers are at the heart of the Movement's endeavours to strengthen urban communities.

The community we celebrated World Red Cross day  in South Jakarta are doing something about the urban challenges. One Red Cross volunteer had given up her home for the weekend and converted it  into a blood donor centre where over a hundred people gave blood for local hospitals, where there is always a shortage. A village drama team enacted a drama about climate change and the need to protect the environment. Hundreds of school children and their parents watched and learned.

I was proud that my organisation, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Indonesia,  continues to support PMI to address these urban challenges, for instance undertaking integrated community based risk reduction (ICBRR) in four large villages in West and East Jakarta, as well as supporting the PMI on its Human Pandemic Preparedness (H2P) programme.

We are also supporting the PMI in the scaling up their blood programme nation-wide. The lack of safe blood is a problem in many densely populated areas around the world

So my walk through Bangkok this morning exposed to me the good and bad of incrreasing urbanisation. We must unite and work to improve the quality of life in Asia's mega-cities, or we will see increasing poverty, marginalization of certain sectors, and more violence.

90 years old - The largest humanitarian orgamisation in the World.

With "I am happy helping my friends' written on their T shirts, these young Indonesian Red Cross volunteers live out the slogan.
Displacement, disease, increasing disasters, a lack of clean water, food shortages, rising violence, the separation of families, grinding poverty and escalating vulnerability are some of the frequent challenges faced by tens of millions of people worldwide affected by armed conflict, natural catastrophes, internal violence and climate change.
Too often, their suffering goes unnoticed and unchecked. In an effort to give the victims of war and disaster a stronger voice, and in an attempt to get people around the globe to sit up and take action, the world's largest humanitarian network – the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – is launched a global campaign called Our world. Your move. on 8 May.

"This campaign is about more than raising awareness, this is a call to action. It's about engaging people in the spirit of volunteerism and empowering everyone to make a difference in the world around us. Each and everyone of us must work in our communities so we are better prepared to cope with current and emerging crises. Together we can protect our future by taking action today," said Juan Manuel Suárez del Toro, the president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was founded on 5 May, 1919, in Paris, France. Today, it is the world’s largest humanitarian network, with 186 Member Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and nearly 100 million volunteers.

To celebrate its 90th anniversary, the IFRC held special events in Paris, on 4 May. At a special reception held at the Elysée Palace, the “Paris Declaration” on the humanitarian challenges the world faces today, was presented presented. The document calls for a major shift towards a culture of prevention and preparedness, instead of just emergency response to disasters.

The campaign is symbolized by a globe in disarray. Each time someone takes action or takes an interest via the web portal http://www.ourworld-yourmove.org/ they are helping to restore order to a world in a mess. The site also allows users to share their experiences through blog contributions, videos and photos.

"Because of the global economic crisis, these are obviously hard times for a lot of people, but they're even harder for those who had very little to begin with. We have a collective responsibility to make our world a better place and we each have the individual power to 'make a move' to help others, whether it's spending time with an elderly neighbour or offering food and shelter to a family displaced by fighting," said Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

With I am happy helping my friends" emblazoned on his T shirt, Angunn Perman Sidiq joined in the celebrations in Jakarta on 8 May 2009.

The Our world. Your move. initiative coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Solferino, in Italy, which led to the creation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, as well as the 90th anniversary of the IFRC and the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. Millions of campaign enthusiasts in more than 80 countries are expected to turn out to celebrate its launch on 8 May, which is also recognized as World Red Cross Red Crescent Day.

Co Chairman of Indonesian Red Cross Salahuddin Nyak Kaoy and Bob McKerrow sit with young children at World Red Cross Day celebrations at a children's home in Jakarta.
Young Indonesian Red Crioss volunteers practicing first aid.
Two Indonesian Red Cross volunteers with Our World Your Move written on their T Shirts in Bahasa Indonesian. Both boys are trained in first aid and are knowledgeable about Avian and Swine Flu.


On Friday 8 May the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) celebrated World Red Cross Day in an orphanage and home for destitute children in Jakarta.
There are 300 kindergartens and children's homes from the Kasih Ibu institution throughout Indonesia supported by the Indonesian Red Cross

As they are aware of the humanitarian challenges the world faces today, the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI} believes that raising volunteerism from childhood is important.
The PMI has started to drive the global campaign, Our World. Your Move, by introducing humanitarian activities to the children as they are the best change agents thought their peers for making a better world.
Please go to this link http://pmi.or.id/ina/news/?act=detail&p_id=106 for more detail.
From 24 to 28 June, thousands of young people from more than 120 nations are due to take part in a world youth meeting and humanitarian village in the Italian village of Solferino, where they will commemorate the history of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and define their vision for tackling today's humanitarian challenges. The vision for improving the world, sorting out the mess, must come from the new generation of humanitarians.