FAMILY NEWS SERVICE (TRACING) is a Project which is rendering services to the Families who are affected due to ethnic war, Disaster, illegal Migration Detention, Trafficking and other humanitarian needs. In Tamil Nadu various places in the District the Sri Lankan Refugee Camps are located. Under this Project IRCS TNB effectively involved in re-uniting the separated Sri Lankan families with the support and co-ordination of IRCS National Headquarters, New Delhi and International Federation of Red Cross, New Delhi.
Tracing Unit with full time Tracing Officer is functioning at IRCS TNB with the Support of National Head Quarters, IRCS TNB, New Delhi since 2008. 32 District Focal Persons and 350 volunteers from 24 Districts trained in FNS. FNS supports Sri Lankan Refugees to restore their family links – more than 70,000 people from 112 camps in Tamil Nadu.
So far 2,318 cases have registered from various Refugee Camps, Detention Centres and Deployments during Emergencies were successfully handled. All these successes are due to IRCS TNB with the whole hearted support rendered by Red Cross at USA, UK, UAE, Uzbekistan, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Switzerland, Norway, Bangladesh,Canada, Nepal and Srilanka. Similarly within India with the help of Sister Red Cross Societies in the States like, AP, Karnataka, Assam, Manipur, Maharastra, Odhisa, Tirupura, WB, Bihar and UP the above cases could be resolved successfully.
Deployment of Tracing Officer : During emergencies in Bihar, Andaman, Sikkim & Uttrakhand Tracing Officer remained physically deployed at the fields on “ Restoring Family Links ” duties on the directions from NHQ. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in their “ConceptNote” circulated through NHQ Lr.No.11014/33/2012/DISS/RFL dated 18.04.2012 have described that “ Tamil Nadu Branch is responsible for generating 93% of Indian Red Cross Society’s total tracing case load. The vast majority of these cases (76%) were opened for Sri Lankan Refugees seeking relatives in Sri Lanka.”
