By Roger Lowe, ARCAN member

During Wendy Harman’s nearly 10 years at the American Red Cross, she led the organization’s first steps into the new world of social media and its transformation into using social posts and other information to help disaster response decision-making in real time.

While working in the music business, Wendy had a front-row seat as peer-to-peer filesharing and the Internet in general completely disrupted the industry. “I could see that technology would disrupt everything as it had in the music industry, and I wanted to help other sectors navigate the change,” she said. And that brought her to the Red Cross in 2006.

At the time, there was no social media team at the Red Cross, which was still dealing with reputational issues following Hurricane Katrina, many based on ongoing misinformation. When Harman began her job, she was encouraged “to make the mean and untruthful internet commenters go away.” That was an impossible task, but what she did do was to engage with social media posters, leaving “nice comments to correct some of the misinformation” in their posts. 

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“Being able to help others unconditionally in a selfless way gives me joy… Joining the American Red Cross as (a) volunteer is my way of paying it forward.” 

Son Michael Pham grew up and lived in South Vietnam and left with his family of seven on the last day before the end of the war. More than 2,000 people were packed on a container ship searching for safety and freedom. Whenever a plane was spotted, a small group gathered in a small area of the ship, each person held a red piece of material or clothing forming the Red Cross sign, their S.O.S. signal.

After surviving two weeks in the Pacific with little or no food and water, they were saved by the U.S. Navy and brought to a refugee camp in Guam. 

In the camp (Orote Camp in Guam, known as Tent City) of more than 50,000 refugees, near the entrance was a large tent with the Red Cross symbol. A large board was there for people to post notes searching for family members. Throughout the day announcements were made on loud speakers by the Red Cross for those who were searching for family members. Outside of the tent, people lined up to receive hygiene, dental supplies, used clothes and shoes. 

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“The Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement remains an impressive humanitarian movement that is so committed and active after more than a century since Henry Dunant expressed his vision of global human action under the seven guiding principles. It’s a privilege to have been part of this vision!”

Eduard (Eddie) Tschan held many positions with the American Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC). Eddie is currently working for the International Medical Corps (IMC) in Kyiv, Ukraine. 

Q. What are you working on now with IMC? Developing a new longer term program portfolio for the IMC for Ukraine. It will build on IMC’s humanitarian work there, which started after the Russian invasion three years ago. IMC has provided health care, mental health, winterization, gender-based violence prevention and services and other support to hundreds of thousands of people mostly on the frontlines of the war in eastern Ukraine. 

Q. What were your favorite programs working with the Red Cross? All programs that entailed primary health care. 

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