Program Assistant for International Policy and External Affairs

>> My name is Elise Witnoski [phonetic], and I work at the America Red Cross. I do international policy and external affairs for them. So the American Red Cross is the largest volunteer network in the world. Every country has a Red Cross society. We are at about 188 right now, including newly-formed countries like South Sudan. So each of those countries would have its own national society. Each of those Red Crosses look very different depending on the capacity of that country and the type of work that's needed and that they're able to do there. Then there's the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, which is a membership organization of all of the countries' Red Cross, and their mandate is to respond to natural disasters. And then there's the ICRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and their mandate is to respond to wars and conflict. While the ICRC in the time of conflict would be there to provide aid to civilians, to monitor and make sure that the civilian population, that the laws of international humanitarian law are not being broken by either side, also to provide assistance. They may provide ambulance service, emergency medical care, food, shelter to refugee populations. The federation would do the same in time of a natural disaster. If there's a large hurricane or tsunami, they would be there to help rebuild as well as provide immediate needs like food and shelter. Another service that the Red Cross provides which is really cool, and is a necessity for people but is not as commonly thought of, is they reconnect families when they are separated in times of conflict or disaster. Part of what I do is maintaining our relationship with other countries' Red Cross societies and then the International Red Cross organizations, the ICRC and the Federation of the Red Cross. So I do policy briefs for our leadership who will be attending meetings with the International Red Cross or other countries' Red Cross societies, to help prepare them for what that conversation might look like and what our relationship is with that organization. So the team that I support is quite large, so my days are usually very busy. Getting in at nine, leave around nine or so. And I would do a wide variety of functions. I'm still relatively new into my career as the spectrum goes. So I do support a lot of administrative work, arranging travel, as well as some event planning, but I also get to dive a little bit deeper into some of the policy analysis. So if there was a big meeting coming up, I would take the papers that were provided to us prior to that meeting and then summarize them into short policy analysis and give some recommendations on what the American Red Cross' position should be on any particular issue that the whole Red Cross movement is considering.