01 December 2014 - Anne Babb, General Secretary of IFBC shares some thoughts on World AIDS Day
It is in the hands of each country and each Government to reduce alcohol related harm. There are overall about 1 million crimes reported annually around the world and 30% of these are directly linked with alcohol consumption. Sadly alcohol consumption often leads to situations that cause harm to others. The trouble is that when alcohol acts as a depressant, many negative thoughts come to surface and may result to actions that would not have surfaced without alcohol. This then leads to new emotions that may cause irresponsible behaviour such as violent outbursts or...
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03 September 2014 - There was a Blue Sea Film festival in my local town this weekend. They showed many short films and other films that have received merits around the world. I managed to take time to see one film: Thousand Times Goodnight. It describes the story of a mother who works as a war reporter and she travels abroad to areas of conflict whilst her husband works at their home town and looks after their children. After a serious injury in a bomb blast she tries to quit her job and return back to home. She realises for the first time how much her family fear for her well being whilst she is away. She has a deep battle of emotions because she has a great...
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10 April 2014 - There was a new shopping area built to a small town. Until then, all shops in town closed at 6pm, but within this bigger shopping area shops were open later and the coffee shops even till 11pm. All of a sudden, teachers noticed that children between the ages of 12-16 seemed to be more tired at school than normally. At that moment, there were no special events in town that would have led young people to stay up very late – so, what was the cause of this sudden tiredness? It went on for a while and then the local shop keepers approached the school. They asked the headmaster to request the pupils not to crowd the foyer of the shopping...
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25 March 2014 - Birthdays received a completely new meaning to me when my first son was born. Until then birthday was a nice celebration and a reason to see my friends. Once my children were born, I realised what a miracle it is that we are all born fully equipped for the life ahead of us. We are all a miracle exactly as we are, with our own individual characteristics and differences. We need care when we are little but step by step we become more independent.
Many people who recover from addiction call the day when they have stopped substance abuse their new birthday. They often celebrate this and reflect back to remember what a blessing it is to live a...
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10 March 2014 - A young couple, both 19 years old, lived in a homelessness hostel. They both suffered from heavy drinking and misuse of prescribed drugs. For two years I supported them in working on their addiction and in building sufficient life skills in order to help them move to their own home. The girl fell pregnant and they had to be rehoused quickly to provide a safer environment for the baby. Being a young woman without education, with very poor literacy and numeracy skills, and without family back up, this girl was very vulnerable and in danger of loosing her child. The couple tried to live independently with resettlement support. But shortly...
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27 February 2014 - I have been working in the field of addiction related services for 16 years. Throughout this period, I have had to analyse my own attitudes towards what is right or wrong. Let me explain the challenge I face. In my first job, I provided support to drug addicted people who were in the process of moving from homelessness to supported housing. Heroin, Cocaine, Cannabis, etc. are illegal drugs and the way the users fund their habit was mostly illegal (prostitution, thieving, begging…). On top of this they used many other substances including alcohol and prescribed medicine. With my values, I was asking myself why all these illegal things...
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28 January 2014 - The International Blue Cross works in 43 countries world-wide. This brings me the challenge of paying attention to regional needs. During 2013, we focused on producing tools and manuals for our African Blue Cross organisations so that they can work on the important issue of alcohol policy development, provide quality self-help services, and start effective life-skills programmes for young people.
This year, we will continue working on these themes. However, I want to stop for a moment to discuss the situation in Europe. Europe has 17 Blue Cross organisations. Most of them provide a variety of professional treatment, counselling, and...
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