COLOMBIAN RED CROSS AND DHL COLLABORATE ON DISASTER RECOVERY EFFORTS

• Under a limited 2020 Cooperation Agreement, DHL’s Disaster Response Team supported the Colombian Red Cross by providing COVID-19 relief assistance. 
• The new expanded agreement, allows DHL’s Disaster Response Team and Colombian Red Cross to work together on future emergency response efforts throughout the country. 
• In 2020, Colombian Red Cross provided humanitarian assistance to more than 4 million people and responded to several emergencies caused by winter weather, Hurricane Iota and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Deutsche Post DHL Group, the world’s leading mail and logistics services provider, entered into a Cooperation Agreement with the Colombian Red Cross to enable DHL’s Disaster Response Team (DRT) to provide logistics support during future disaster recovery operation in Colombia.  DHL’s DRT is comprised of specially-trained employee volunteers from DHL Express, DHL Global Forwarding and DHL Supply Chain located in Colombia.

“The Colombian Red Cross, with the aim of strengthening humanitarian assistance in the country, will work hand-in-hand with DHL. Private partnerships of this nature are critical during times of emergency response. We are grateful for this newly expanded partnership with DHL and look forward to relying on their logistics expertise and employee volunteers to help provide humanitarian relief to the communities we serve. We are grateful for this alliance that focuses on the formulation, implementation and evaluation of projects and joint support in response to the logistics and operational needs during an emergency," said Dra. Judith Carvajal de Álvarez, National President of the Colombian Red Cross.

Under the new agreement, DHL will collaborate on emergency preparedness and disaster response efforts with the Colombian Red Cross upon request. The Cooperation Agreement was signed on January 27, 2021, by:

• Juvenal Francisco Moreno Carrillo, National Executive Director of the Colombian Red Cross  
• Gilberto Castro, Senior Director of Operations, DHL Express Colombia & DHL Americas Disaster Response Team Director
• Allan Cornejo, Country Manager, DHL  Express
• Daniel Viteri, Country Manager, DHL Global Forwarding
• German Merino, General Manager Service Logistics, DHL Supply Chain

“DHL’s Disaster Response Teams are comprised of highly-trained employee volunteers who provide logistics expertise to help coordinate humanitarian logistics during emergency response situations. We are honored to provide continued support to the Colombian Red Cross and to support our company purpose to connect people and improve lives,” said Gilberto Castro, Americas DRT Coordinator, Deutsche Post DHL Group.

Last year, Colombian Red Cross provided humanitarian assistance to more than 4 million people, including the population affected by the winter season and the passage of Hurricane Iota through the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina. To date, Colombian Red Cross has provided health and psychological care to 1,060 individuals and installed three water treatment plants that have distributed 5,067,140 liters in the island of Providencia. The Colombian Red Cross employees, volunteers and directives continue to work daily to assist the most vulnerable populations impacted by hurricane Iota.

DHL’s DRTs were deployed to support Hurricane relief efforts in Honduras, Colombia and Panama, managing more than 935 tons of humanitarian relief last year.  In addition, DHL’s DRT employees were deployed for a total of 56 days to support COVID-19 response efforts in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Panama where employees helped establish COVID-19 supply warehouses, assemble and distribute food rations for those sheltered in place; and handled more than 100 tons of relief items.

About the Disaster Response Team

The DRTs are part of Deutsche Post DHL Group’s GoHelp disaster management program, which it has operated in partnership with the United Nations (UN) since 2005. Through this partnership, the Group provides the UN and national disaster management agencies with pro bono access to its core logistics expertise, and the logistics skills of nearly 900 specially-trained employee volunteers worldwide who can deploy within 72 hours after a disaster. Since the partnership was launched, the DRTs have completed more than 52 deployments for different disasters in over 20 countries. In Latin and Central America, DHL has nearly 400 trained DRT employee volunteers ready to respond in 10 countries. In addition to the DRT deployments, the Group's Get Airports Ready for Disaster (GARD) initiative –also part of the GoHelp program – trains airport management in high-risk regions to be better prepared should disaster strike.