Assignment on organizations

Greenpeace & Red Cross






Greenpeace is a non-profit and also non-governmental organization, which focusses on environmental issues. It wants to protect the earth and every creature on it to enable a sustainable lifestyle for human and animals. They deal with the topic of global warming, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling and nuclear issues. 
As they have got 2.8 million individual supporters, they refuse money from the government, political parties or foundation grants, so that their work is always objective and not influenced by any political or economic views but their own ones. The international coordination body is placed in Amsterdam, Netherlands, but they are operating in over 40 countries all over the world. To focus on a current issue I'd like to mention their work concerning the global warming, which they consider as the "greatest environmental problem facing the Earth". Greenpeace calls for a total decrease of green house gas emissions by 2050 and at least for a 40% decrease by 2020 (referring to 1990s' levels). Additionally they have launched the "go beyond oil" campaign, which is focussed on ending the world's consumption of oil. One way to reach this is to apply political pressure on the governments who allow oil exploration in their countries and who keep the dependence on oil alive like this.
Another great and also well-known campaign of Greenpeace is their work against whaling, as you often see them in the TV, with their little boats in front of the big whaling ships.
Like this and with a lot of protest actions they want to 
protect the whales, as there are already species that have been exterminated by whaling. They also want to make people aware that the blubber of many whales is highly contaminated with organochlorines so that it normally should be classified as toxic waste.
Greenpeace accomplishes its capacious work on all the several issues by having many volunteers and private sponsors, who make it possible to deal with several topics in several countries at the same time, which makes it to the biggest and most influential environmental organization world wide. 

The international Red Cross movement classifies itself as the "largest humanitarian network in the world. Their main goals are to end human suffering, protect life and health and protect human dignity especially during crisis like armed conflicts or other emergencies.  They are supported by millions of volunteers so that they are able to operate all over the world. The Red Cross as we know it isn't a single organization as it seems to be, but it is composed of the "International Committee of the Red Cross" (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross, Red Crescent societies and the 186 individual National Societies. They are all independent from each other, like they have their own legal identity and role, but they are united by seven fundamental principles as well. These principles are:
humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

One of their biggest issues is the assurance of water and habitat in conflict zones. Like this they enable life in regions of emerging, acute, chronic and post-crises situations. They try to compensate urgent water needs as a consequence of large population displacements because of armed conflicts. These conflicts and population displacements also often effect a need for shelter and contemporary housing, which people can't accomplish on their own. The Red Cross movement helps these people and makes life during these difficult situations possible.






Both organizations have a wide spread area of influence and their world is enabled by many volunteers and private sponsors, so that they are independent from governmental help and free from corruption.




Personally, I'm not always sure what to think about the organizations, especially about the Red Cross movement, because there have been several rumors that peoples' donations don't reach the real areas of conflicts but the organizers themselves. 
Greenpeace I consider as a really good organization even if their goals are sometimes a bit utopian and not really realistic.