Queen Letizia of Spain is gaining the old momentum of public engagements slowly as Spain is trying to come back from the impact of Coronavirus pandemic. Today, Queen Letizia visited the headquarters of the Spanish Red Cross in Madrid where she spent the day with the volunteers.
The Madrid Red Cross Spanish headquarters on Avenida Cardenal Herrera Oria 5 is one of the 1,400 local offices that the organization has throughout the country. The centre was able to get involved and learn first-hand about the RESPONDE Red Cross program. A plan that during the COVID-19 crisis has already mobilized more than 40,000 volunteers and with which it has already reached 1,500,000 people with a comprehensive response, in its different areas of action: emergencies, health, social inclusion, education, employment and environment.
Queen Letizia is the Honorary President of the Spanish Red Cross. Today Letizia participated in a meeting in which the general coordinator of the Spanish Red Cross, Toni Bruel, explained the evolution of the RESPONDE Red Cross plan, seven days after reaching the target period of two months of its launch. It has done so supported with the organization’s Open Data, the application where the citizen can follow the evolution and daily action of the plan through the Internet.
The RESPONDE Red Cross plan is a concrete plan of action and comprehensive response launched in March to respond to the situation caused by the pandemic. Given the growing economic impact of this crisis, the Red Cross considers it necessary to expand and reformulate its intervention to reach more people until the end of the year. In total, the plan will last 9 months and during that period it is expected to serve more than 2,400,000 vulnerable people.
The coordinator of the Red Cross Community of Madrid, Nieves Morales, has been in charge of explaining the operation and strategy of the Red Cross and Red Cross RESPONDE in each local headquarters and at street level, to ensure care for all beneficiaries.
Dressed in the red vest, Spanish Queen partially participated in the activities that the volunteers carry out in the areas of the Red Cross RESPONDE plan at the local headquarters in Fuencarral. In the warehouse, where the basic products are delivered to the people who come, the volunteers, Pedro Odell and Vega Solana shown the Queen the different basic necessities kits (food and hygiene products) that they prepare and deliver.
The volunteers have told Letizia about the situations they are encountering and the working methods of the Red Cross in these districts. To date, 451,934 kits have been delivered to the most vulnerable people.
Soledad Pozuelo, volunteer, Health technician and linked to the Red Cross for 16 years, has explained to Doña Letizia all the procedures they carry out since a person enters the headquarters requesting help, within the different areas of health, social inclusion, education or employment.
Next, the Queen learned about the follow-up and accompaniment work that the Red Cross is carrying out with older people, one of the most vulnerable groups in this pandemic. Raquel Aparicio, a volunteer in the area of social intervention, attends one of the 39,526 follow-up and attention calls made in the RESPONDE Red Cross plan by telephone.
Along with the volunteer Estefanía Rojas, Childhood technician, Queen Letizia participated in a session of “Virtualized School Success Promotion”, a school support program for families in vulnerable situations that supported vulnerable children and young people during the Nationwide lockdown. More than 8,748 boys and girls have been provided with a connection, as well as devices to continue their school support. Queen also had the opportunity to learn, through the hand of the volunteer, Alba Muñoz, employment technician, the services that the RESPONDE Red Cross is offering to women and men who have lost their jobs. More than 21,423 people have already received help in this area and 2,725 labour intermediations have been carried out.
Throughout the visit, the Red Cross action in relief and emergencies and in health was shown and Queen Letizia learnt about the main actions developed to fight against the health emergency. More than 8,123 people went through mobilizations, 101 shelters welcomed more than 4467 people, 22 temporary hospital infrastructures were established that had more than 640,821 health prevention calls and the 5,584 attended in the new Red Cross channel. HEARS you of psychosocial care and the delivery of medicines had served more than 9,739 people in collaboration with General Council of Pharmacists.
Doña Letizia also learnt about the work carried out by the volunteers who attend and regulate people’s access to the local headquarters. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the Red Cross has been operating in all the countries of the world affected, representing the greatest mobilization of resources, capacities and people in its history in favour of the most vulnerable people and the general population. In Spain, it has more than 250,000 volunteers. Since the start of the pandemic, the Queen has closely followed the activity carried out by the Spanish Red Cross through different videoconferences.
For the day, Letizia was dressed in a black and white full-sleeved sweater.
She paired the sweater with black trouser.
Letizia was wearing the suede Boss Lara loafers.
Her Bezel stud earrings that remained a staple in her many recent looks were finishing the look.
Following the guidelines of the government, Letizia was wearing a face mask and gloves.
Later in the day, Queen Letizia talked to the first lady of France, Mrs Brigitte Macron. During the conversation, they have shown solidarity and mutual understanding between Spain and France in the face of the pandemic caused by COVID 19, within the good state of bilateral relations between the two countries. Letizia recently met with the first lady in March this year that was also coincidently her last public engagement before the Coronavirus lockdown.
