75th anniversary of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

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This year, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has celebrated an important anniversary. Seventy-five years ago, five men from five different Societies — American, British, French, Italian and Japanese — sat together to forge a union of Societies around the world, a global consortium united in its quest to serve humanity. Decades later, with a membership of 162 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, a total of 124 million individual members and 250,000 employees, the Federation has marked 75 years of response to the suffering of humankind. Now some changes are in order to help us meet our humanitarian goals. Yet our mission, governed by the fundamental principle of humanity, the cornerstone of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, remains constant.