Red Cross Volunteers — Connecting Family Members Across the Globe

There are countless of ways to get involved with the Red Cross. You may see Red Cross volunteers responding to disasters in your neighborhood or across the country. Perhaps you are a blood donor and you’ve been greeted by a blood ambassador, maybe you had a free smoke detector installed in your home through our Sound the Alarm program, or maybe you took a First Aid Training Course. In addition to the more visible volunteer roles at the Red Cross, there is a core group of volunteers that dedicate their time and expertise in the Red Cross Restoring Family Links program and you don’t often hear about their work.

For more than 150 years, the Red Cross’s Restoring Family Links program has helped reconnect separated families and address the issue of missing persons as a result of armed conflict, natural disasters, migration, and other situations. Families suffer greatly when their loved ones remain unaccounted for, and families must learn to live with uncertainty. It is this uncertainty that Red Cross Restoring Family Links caseworkers work ardently to resolve.

The Red Cross of Illinois is proud to have a stellar group of volunteers whose behind-the-scenes work brings joy and closure to families around the world. Meet Restoring Family Links Caseworkers Margo Dudewicz, Susie Mazaheri, Monica Agler and Mallory Smith.

Monica Agler has been a volunteer with the Red Cross for over 12 years. Monica started with the Red Cross Service to the Armed Forces and moved to Restoring Family Links when this program evolved.

“Every role I’ve had with the Red Cross has been gratifying. Through Restoring Family Links, I have had the opportunity to resolve cases by locating loved ones and providing closure to families who’ve lived in anguish over not knowing what happened to their family member. Most currently, I was assigned to a case of a family who fled Iraq and they lost touch with their son who went back to Iraq to retrieve his grandmother. I have 15 years of tracking to follow, but I’m determined to bring this family peace.”

Susie Mazaheri is the Restoring Family Links Regional Lead for the Red Cross of Illinois. Susie has been with the Red Cross since 2008 with the majority of her time as a Disaster Mental Health professional. You can find Susie volunteering locally or across the country aiding those affected by disasters, but her work in Restoring Family Links is always in the back of her mind and part of her days. See more from Susie here.

“Our work through the Restoring Family Links program is so important and can be done from any part of the country. My motivation is knowing that the people we help have been through so much trauma, yet they maintain that glimmer of hope of locating and reuniting with their loved one. Like the mother in Honduras who lost touch with her young son as he migrated and found himself in a detention center. Because of the incredible Red Cross network, we were able to give that mother the closure she had been waiting for, for so long. I put myself in her shoes and can only hope that someone would want to help me find the ending to my story if ever I found myself in a similar situation.”

Margot Dudewicz has been a volunteer with the American Red Cross serving the Quad Cities and West Central Illinois since 2017. Margot, whose husband is a member of the U.S. Army, first joined the Red Cross through its Service to the Armed Forces. Margot’s love for research, genealogy, and helping people connected her to Restoring Family Links.

“The Red Cross is so much more than what people think they are — globally, the Red Cross cares about families — especially families who become separated. Like the Ugandan sister living in DeKalb whose brother was missing for 20 years. After connecting her with her brother who she thought deceased – the emotions and joy I witnessed when they connected is something I will never forget and are my motivation to do everything I can when I get a case to make the connection or find that family more information. The stories and people I get to work with are so powerful and inspire me to give back.”

Mallory Smith has been a Red Cross volunteer since 2019. Mallory is an aerospace engineer and contractor with NASA. During her free time, Mallory works on reconnecting families and uses her engineering and love of data mining to help connect families. Hear more from Mallory here.

“Working in Restoring Family Links takes perseverance—not giving up on a lead because you know that your work, when successful, will have a massive impact on someone’s life.”

“We could absolutely not do this work without our volunteers. The passion and dedication they have for helping families is incredible. The creativity and resourcefulness shown by our entire Restoring Family Links team makes a huge impact in the lives of families all around the world,” shares Crystal Smith, Service to the Armed Forces/International Services Regional Program Director.

The American Red Cross Restoring Family Links program assists individuals and families who are separated internationally by war, disaster, migration, political events and other humanitarian circumstances in re-establishing contact.

When families are separated internationally by armed conflict, disaster, migration and other humanitarian emergencies the global Red Cross and Red Crescent network can help to do the following:

• Locate missing family members
• Restore and maintain family communications
• Provide war-time documentation of internment and/or documentation on the fate of missing family members

If you live in the United States and are seeking information about someone you’ve been unable to contact due to a recent disaster in the United States, including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, please visit American Red Cross’s Contact and Locate Loved Ones page. This information is also available in Spanish to search for your loved one.

If you are looking for a family member living abroad who is not a US citizen, please submit your inquiry here.

To all of our dedicated Red Cross Volunteers, thank you. Your dedication, compassion, and willingness to give your time and service upholds the mission of the Red Cross to alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies.

To volunteer with the Red Cross, visit RedCross.org/volunteer.

Written by Illinois Communications Manager Connie Esparza

Bridging the Path to Preparedness in Ecuador

Preparedness.  I talk about it often as part of my job.  I share tips and helpful information about how to better prepare, and often wonder if people actually feel confident about what to do in case of an emergency.  But I am now content to know that in South America, specifically Ecuador, families and communities know exactly what to do in case of an emergency.

I was fortunate to travel with another staff member from the Red Cross International Communications team to Ecuador in late March where we visited coastal areas, since earthquakes and tsunamis are big threats there. The American Red Cross, in partnership with USAID, funds preparedness programs to teach communities everything from first aid, and lifeguarding skills to disaster preparedness.  We also visited a few rural communities where flooding is their big threat, and I was in awe at how prepared everyone was.  Ever since these programs were implemented, the culture among the community has become all about preparedness.

We spoke to community residents who were so proud of the skills they had learned from the Red Cross.  I was particularly impressed when we visited a school in Manglaralto named Escuela Alfredo Sanz Rivera.  The kids were on vacation, but came to the school to greet us and show us everything they had learned through the program.  I was in awe as these kids, who were not much older than 12 years old, knew so much about first aid, how to use an extinguisher and how to carry a patient on a stretcher.  They told us how they had already put their skills to good use by helping out their siblings when one of them was burned.  I have a 15-year-old son and am sure his first instinct would be to use Google.

Some of the areas we visited had to great creative with their evacuation plans. The town of Briceño de Afuera is a small community outside of Guayaquil. People were excited that we had come to visit. They were eager to share their evacuation plans with us. This town is prone to flooding, but not from rain, rather from the nearby bodies of water that rises.

There is only one convenience store for the whole community and you must cross a bamboo bridge to get to the store. There were several of these bamboo bridges which looked like they could fall apart at any given moment. I actually had to cross one of the bamboo bridges and was scared to death.  The water below me looked muddy and dirty. But it helped me to think about the people that I had just met, that lived there and how it was their way of life.

They showed us the community evacuation plan they had created with the help of the Red Cross.  A member of the community had drawn the map and plan by hand. They went through every detail and were proud of the plan they had created. They demonstrated to us how they use a homemade firecracker to announce to the town that there is an evacuation. Yes, a firecracker!  It looked like a bottle rocket that I use to light up when I was a kid. It apparently works well as an early warning system for community members. The whole town attested to the fact that they knew exactly what to do when they heard the loud pop.

We are so fortunate to live in a country where we have so many resources and help at our fingertips.  However, it is extremely humbling to know that we, at the Red Cross are helping in other parts of the world.  Communities are being resourceful however they can.  I’ve never been more confident about the importance of teaching preparedness.  Because even if we think we know it all, our mission is still helping others, somewhere in the world in getting better prepared.

Written by Veronica Vasquez, a member of the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago, who traveled to Ecuador in late March 2014.

Syrian Conflict Separates Sisters – Red Cross Reconnects Them

I recently had the opportunity to speak to members of the Restoring Family Links Advocate Committee at their annual meeting in DC.  It was an honor to be invited and I was grateful for the opportunity to share about some of my cases.

One of these cases involved a family tracing effort for a woman named Sara (pseudonym) in Chicago who had lost contact with her sister. This scenario is fairly common for the Restoring Family Links program at the American Red Cross, but what was difficult about this case is that my client’s sister was living in war-torn Syria.

Sara came to our office with her daughter, and together they told us the story of their family. Sara’s sister was living with her children in a remote region of Syria. Normally Sara would call her sister daily—just to have a quick conversation and make sure that the family was all right.

One day Sara called and the phone lines were down. This had happened before, but normally the lines would be operating within a few days. However, this time, that did not happen. She started calling more frequently, not just once, but multiple times a day. Every time, the results were the same: the phone lines remained down.

Through Internet research, the family discovered that the area had come under fighting and attacks had destroyed the phone lines. What the family could not find through these searches, however, was any information about potential deaths through these clashes. They simply had no way of knowing the fate of their family members.

Since the start of the civil war, over 2 million refugees have fled Syria for the neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq with millions more displaced internally.

There was additional concern. Various sides were trying to recruit Sara’s young nephews. Her anxiety had become unbearable. Sara wanted to start a family tracing case, but was worried that efforts to locate the family might bring unwanted attention that could harm the young boys who had thus far avoided joining the fighting.

The story was heartbreaking. The details and levels of concern were very difficult to hear. Despite a desire to help and a sincere compassion for the family, my RFL team and I worried about logistics.

Would National Headquarters be able to accept the case?

Would the Syrian Red Crescent be able to conduct RFL work at this time?

How long would the family have to wait to find other any news?

After a frantic phone call with a caseworker in DC, I was encouraged to submit the case. Not only was it accepted, but it was also marked as high priority and released for tracing work to begin. Within weeks, we received notice that the family was found! Through already established religious networks, we were able to contact the family and confirm that they were ALIVE and well!

I cannot describe to you the relief that Sara expressed when she was told the news! In time, the phone lines were restored, and she was once again able to talk to her sister.

I have checked in with the family, and the story remains the same. Life in Syria is still incredibly hard, but what has changed is that the family now knows that they have an ally. They know that if the phones go down again, someone can help.

There are many instances where I have been unsure if a case can even be accepted, yet, a family reconnection occurs. This is why I do tracing work and love being an RFL caseworker.

Written by: Christa Kuntzelman