Charities call for local volunteers to get trained up on disasters
There's a push for people to get trained up to be able to help out their community if a disaster or emergency strikes.
The British Red Cross have found one in six of us have witnessed a large scale emergency like flooding or a fire, but most wouldn't know how they can help.
The drive to sign up 10,000 volunteers comes after the British Red Cross experienced one of its busiest years since WWII in 2017, assisting 9,265 people in more than 1,500 emergencies across the UK in 2017.
Simon Lewis, Head of Crisis Response at the British Red Cross, said: “The British Red Cross responds to a UK emergency every four hours.
“Last year we faced a huge number of major emergencies like those in London and Manchester. They brought tragedy to so many people, but we witnessed remarkable acts of kindness and saw that people really want to give practical help when crisis hits.
“The findings of our report with Aviva show that despite this desire to help, people often don’t know how best to assist or worry they don’t have the right skills to get involved. “By creating a national taskforce of community reserve volunteers we want to put local people at the heart of emergency response, to help communities rebuild and recover faster.
“Everyone has a role to play when disaster strikes, even the smallest act of kindness can make a huge difference. It’s quick and easy to sign up online community reserve volunteers, you don’t need specialist skills and we need your help now more than ever.”