Tomorrow, 13 October, is the International Day for Disaster Reduction. This year the subject of this Day will be ‘Disability and Disasters’ and it will concentrate on the needs of people with disabilities in various emergency scenarios. This is a very important subject because, as the United Nations declared, people with disabilities ‘in general terms, still do not have significant representation in planning and decision-making processes that are activated to reduce such risks and assure their survival and capacity for recovery in the best way possible’.

This is a subject very dear to the hearts of the Order of the Ministers of the Sick which deals every day with caring for the disabled and through its Camillian Task Force works in emergency areas throughout the world. For this reason, for two years the Camillians have celebrated at the same time the International Day for the Victims of Disasters.

For the occasion, at 17.30, Father Aristelo Miranda, the coordinator of the International CTF, will preside over the solemn vespers and will discuss the subject of the day at the ‘Madre Giuseppina Vannini’ Hospital in Rome, at the same time as the presence there of the renowned relic of the heart of St. Camillus de Lellis (read the programme).

This will be a day to discuss the most suitable responses to natural disasters in order to save human lives, reduce risks, prepare communities to protect themselves and, if possible, to reduce to zero the number of victims. With a special focus on the disabled.

Read the latest edition of ‘Crossover’, the quarterly news bulletin of the Camillian Task Force.

 This is also spoken about here
To see the photographs click here