The State working committee meeting of the Youth Red Cross (YRC), Odisha State branch, was held at the Red Cross Bhavan on Tuesday with Minister for Higher Education and chairman of the working committee Badri Narayan Patra presiding over it.
YRC secretary Dr MP Mohanty extended a warm welcome to the members present and placed the budget and annual action plan before the committee.
He emphasised on the new initiatives to be taken by YRC, Odisha to build the capacity of Youth Red Cross Volunteers on trauma management, certified first medical responder programme, training for women Youth Red Cross Volunteers and training for +2 SC & ST volunteers in Ekalabya Colleges.
YRCO Dr Sarita Supkar made a power-point presentation on YRC annual activities in 2012-13. Director of Higher Education Dr Nebedita Jena, XIMB Director Paul Farnadis, CHSE Chairman Prof B Chhatoi, Principala of FM (A) College, Baleswar and Rajendra (A) College, Balangir and YRC counsellor B Govinda Rao participated in the meeting as members.
Minister Patra praised the role of the Youth Red Cross for its various social service activities. He said that 100 per cent blood requirement in the State can only be met by the youth volunteers and told those present to ensure that voluntary blood donation camps in all colleges must be organised under the aegis of the Youth Red Cross.
He also emphasised on organisation of various training programmes to enhance the skills of the volunteers and, accordingly, he requested the YRC to hold more and more training programmes on disaster risk reduction and road safety awareness.
All college principals were requested to focus on the YRC activities such as first aid training, plantation programmes, traffic awareness and road safety programmes as per the annual activity calendar.
All the committee members reiterated the need of organising more YRC programmes at the district level and to impart more training to youth volunteers across the State in order to drive the youth power and volunteerism towards humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable people of the society.