May 11, 2020: Queen Letizia helped as a volunteer at a Spanish Red Cross center. She has shared the day with the volunteers at the Madrid Red Cross Spanish headquarters in Avenida Cardenal Herrera Oria 5, one of the 1400 local offices that the organization has throughout the country. There, she was able to get involved and learn first-hand about the RESPONDE Red Cross program. A plan that during the COVID-19 crisis has already mobilized more than 40,000 volunteers and with which it has already reached 1,500,000 people with a comprehensive response, in its different areas of action: emergencies, health, social inclusion, education, employment and environment.
Doña Letizia, Honorary President of the Spanish Red Cross, has been accompanied by the Minister of Territorial Policy and Public Function, Carolina Darias; the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida; the Minister for the Environment, Spatial Planning and Sustainability of the Community of Madrid, Paloma Martín; the president of the Spanish Red Cross, Javier Senent; and the president of the Red Cross of the Community of Madrid Pilar Roy.
Upon arrival at the center, Her Majesty the Queen participated in a meeting in which the general coordinator of the Spanish Red Cross, Toni Bruel, explained the evolution of the RESPONDE Red Cross plan, seven days after reaching the target period of two months of its launch. It has supported it with Open Data of the organization, the application where the citizen can follow the evolution and daily performance of the plan through the Internet.
The RESPONDE Red Cross plan is a concrete plan of action and comprehensive response launched in March to respond to the situation caused by the pandemic. Given the growing economic impact of this crisis, the Red Cross considers it necessary to expand and reformulate its intervention to reach more people until the end of the year. In total, the plan will last 9 months and during that period it is expected to serve more than 2,400,000 vulnerable people.
The coordinator of the Red Cross Community of Madrid, Nieves Morales, has been in charge of explaining the operation and strategy of the Red Cross and the Red Cross RESPONDE in each local headquarters and at street level, to ensure care for all beneficiaries.
At the end of the meeting, the president, Javier Senet, has offered Her Majesty the Queen the representative Red Cross volunteer vest as honorary president of the organization.
Dressed in the red vest, Doña Letizia has partially participated in the activities that the volunteers carry out in the areas of the Red Cross RESPONDE plan at the local headquarters in Fuencarral.
In the warehouse, where the basic products are delivered to the people who come, the volunteers, Pedro Odell and Vega Solana, have shown the Queen the different basic necessities kits (food and hygiene products) that they prepare and deliver. directly through the Social Response Units, an action that falls within the area of Social Inclusion. The volunteers have told him about the situations they are encountering and the Red Cross working methods in these neighborhoods. To date, 451,934 kits have been delivered to the most vulnerable people.
Soledad Pozuelo, volunteer, Health technician and linked to the Red Cross for 16 years, has explained to Doña Letizia all the procedures they carry out since a person enters the headquarters requesting help, within the different areas of health, social inclusion, education or employment.
Next, the Queen learned about the follow-up and accompaniment work that the Red Cross is carrying out with older people, one of the most vulnerable groups in this pandemic. Raquel Aparicio, a volunteer in the area of social intervention, attends one of the 39,526 follow-up and attention calls made in the RESPONDE Red Cross plan by telephone.
Within the education area of the plan, Doña Letizia has participated together with the volunteer Estefanía Rojas, Childhood technician, in a session of “Virtualized School Success Promotion”, a school support program for families in vulnerable situations that, after The declaration of the state of alarm has been virtualized in order to continue supporting vulnerable children and young people. More than 8,748 boys and girls have been provided with a connection, as well as devices to continue their school support.
Her Majesty the Queen has also had the opportunity to learn, through the hand of the volunteer, Alba Muñoz, employment technician, the services that the RESPONDE Red Cross is offering to women and men who have lost their jobs. In the Employment area, whose main activities have also been virtualized in order to continue giving support to the beneficiaries, more than 21,423 people have already received help in this area and 2,725 labor intermediations have been carried out.
Throughout the visit, the Red Cross action in relief and emergencies and in health was shown, learning about the main actions developed to fight against the health emergency, sharing the actions of 8,123 mobilizations of affected people, 101 shelters that welcome more 4. 467 people, the 22 temporary hospital infrastructures, the more than 640,821 health prevention calls and the 5,584 attended in the new Red Cross channel. HEARS you of psychosocial care and the delivery of medicines to more than 9,739 people in collaboration with the General Council of Pharmacists.
Already abroad, before the end of the day, Doña Letizia was interested in the work carried out by the volunteers who attend and regulate people's access to the local headquarters.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the Red Cross has been operating in all the countries of the world affected, representing the greatest mobilization of resources, capacities and people in its history in favor of the most vulnerable people and the general population. In Spain, it has more than 250,000 volunteers. Since the start of the pandemic, Her Majesty the Queen has closely followed the activity carried out by the Spanish Red Cross through different videoconferences.
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