The thesis is dedicated to the history of the Czechoslovak Red Cross (CSRC) organization, especially to the period 1945 - 1952. The CSRC carried out valuable activities between 1945 and 1948 not only in the medical field, but also in social services. Training of caregivers and voluntary nurses, establishing and operating medical facilities or searching for missing individuals due to WWII can be listed among others. A particular phase of CSRC history started after February 1948 Coup, when it slowly transformed into voluntary organization of the National Front. The thesis is mainly based on archives of CSRC stored in the National archive. Key words Czechoslovak Red Cross - social services - modern history - Czechoslovakia after war - National Front

This thesis is about a Non Government Organisation (NGO) whose main focus is on professional and home care services. The ``Alice{\crqq}, which is part of the Czech Red Cross in České Budějovice, has been supplying these services since 1994. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the historical development of ``Alice{\crqq}, looking closely at the quality of the service it offers. The next aim is to ``compare clients{\crqq} requirements against the potential the organization and to suggest certain improvements that can be made in the services, which would lead to higher quality and greater efficiency.

Sjukvårdstaktiken idag grundar sig idag i reglementen och handböcker där sjukvårdsgrupper bär det Röda Korset för att kunna få de skydd som den internationella humanitära rätten ger. Dessa lagar gäller i väpnade konflikter och ska respekteras av alla parter i en konflikt. Trots dessa lagar sker attacker riktade mot sjukvårdsenheter medvetet. Senast i Rysslands invasion av Ukraina har det enligt WHO skett 859 attacker mot sjukvårdsenheter.  När sjukvårdsgrupper ses som legitima mål för en motståndare skapas ett problem och ett dilemma om svenska sjukvårdsgrupper bör bära det Röda Korset för att få de skydd som den internationella humanitära rätten ger, eller om gruppen i stället bör skyddas genom att inte utmärka dem med det Röda Korset. Syftet med arbetet är att utforska, om en sjukvårdsgrupp bör bära det Röda Korset eller inte, genom att besvara frågeställningen: Vad händer med en sjukvårdsgrupps skydd när de inte bär det Röda Korset, utifrån skyddslökens lager? Slutsatsen är att skyddet kommer att öka på sjukvårdsgruppen om de inte bär det Röda Korset, men att det då måste beslutas på högre nivåer och alla i Försvarsmakten måste göra likadant. De reglementen som finns för dagens sjukvårdtaktik behöver ses över och revideras då den tänkta motståndaren inte följer krigets lagar som de är tänkta att göra. Sjukvårdsgruppers uppträdande behöver också ändras för att deras egna skydd ska kunna öka ytterligare. / Medical tactics today are based on the regulations and manuals where medical units wear the Red Cross to get the protection that international humanitarian law gives. These laws apply in armed conflicts and must be respected by all parts in a conflict. Despite these laws, attacks targeting healthcare facilities still occur. Most recently in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to the WHO, there have been 859 attacks on medical units. When medical units are seen as legitimate targets for an adversary, it creates a problem and a dilemma as to how Swedish medical units should wear the red cross to receive the protections that international humanitarian law provides, or whether one should instead protect medical units by not using the Red Cross.  The aim of this essay is to explore, if a medical unit should wear the Red Cross or not by answering the question: What happens to a medical unit’s protection when they don't wear the Red Cross, based on the layer of system survivability? The conclusion is that protection will increase for the health care group if not wearing the Red Cross, but it must be joint decisions within the Armed Forces, and everyone must do the same.  The regulations that exist for today's medical unit tactics need to be reviewed and revised as the adversaries that exist today do not follow the laws of war as they are supposed to. Medical units’ tactics need to be changed so that their own protection can increase.

Between 1915 and 1918, the Swedish Red Cross organised transportation and exchanges of prisoners of war between Russia, Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During 1917, some particularly sick prisoners were sent to Norway and Denmark to be hospitalised. This paper studies the aid effort to prisoners of war by the Swedish Red Cross during World War One by studying their work with these prisoner exchanges. By doing this, the study aims to answer the question of how the Swedish Red Cross cooperated with states to conduct exchanges of prisoners of war. This is done through a qualitative method of analysis of the material, during which Nye’s theory of interdependence is employed as a tool for the analysis. The four dimensions of interdependence (sources, benefits, relative costs, and symmetries) are used to generate operationalized research questions and to analyse the results. These transportations were a massive administrative undertaking for the Swedish Red Cross and required cooperation from all involved states to run smoothly. The Russian revolution and subsequent civil war, lack of coal and oil, and animosity between the belligerent nations created problems repeatedly threatening the cooperations. The study concludes that the cooperation was based on administrational work by the Swedish Red Cross together with material, financial and medical contributions from the states. The study also concludes that the main sources of interdependence were the mutual need to exchange prisoners between the belligerent states. For them the main benefit was getting their compatriots back; for the Red Cross and neutral states, it was recognized as a humanitarian actor. The Swedish Red Cross and the neutral states were the more sensitive actors, while the belligerent states were the more vulnerable actors. The cooperation was relatively symmetrical but slightly skewed in the favour of the belligerent states

Changing the approach to communication and engagement with the local people in Liberia during the Ebola response turned out to be a key strategy in the Red Cross’ work. The Liberian Red Cross’ communication with the crisis-affected people changed significantly during the fight against the Ebola virus, from top-down information to a more dialogical communication approach. The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has caused more than 11 000 deaths since the outbreak in March 2014. The task of defeating the virus seemed overwhelming at times, but the outbreak finally stopped and all the three worst hit countries: Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization. Communication with and participation of the people the aid organizations target have been a central issue for discussion within the international community and development agencies for a long time. During the Ebola response it was clearly stated that communicating and engaging with the people living in the affected area was a core approach during and after the response. This thesis explores how one of the responding humanitarian organizations, The Red Cross, used communication with the crisis affected people in Liberia as a tool in their response to help stop and prevent the virus from spreading. The study is done as a case study. Main components of the case, and focus for the analysis, are semi-structured interviews with staff and volunteers from the Liberian Red Cross that worked with communication and operational activities during the Ebola response. Red Cross documents from the Ebola response, policy, planning, evaluation and training-documents, are also important part of the case.

Goal number 12 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations (UN)emphasises on how the increase in the world population is hampering the achievement ofenvironmental sustainability. The diminishing resources of nature draw attention to the factthat more innovative methods need to salvage the environment and the planet at large.Textiles or clothing are one of the essential things that every human owns and with a globalpopulation of over 7 billion, there is an urgency to find ways to reduce its production, due tothe number of resources used and the amount of emissions the textile/clothing industryproduces.The Swedish Red Cross is a charitable organisation that deals with second-hand clothing toraise profits for its activities while contributing to environmental sustainability. Their secondhandretail shops give customers value for their money while extending the lifecycle of clothes.Due to their non-profitable nature puts much pressure on their finances. The need for revenuecalls for finding more environmentally sustainable ways of making a profit out of the clothesthey receive while evaluating the transportation options to reduce cost.Literature review and route optimisation in ArcGIS are used in the analysis. Driving timeanalysis is carried out to link stores to the closest depots to provide graphical and efficientmeans of reaching all the stores. The review of literature offers insights for environmentallysustainable ways of making a profit from second-hand clothes.The outcome provides results which will help generate more profit as well as cut down themajor contributor to the high transportation cost by more than 50%. Moreover, a suggestion ismade for a new time frame and a new travel mode to improve the coordination between thestores and the depots

The aim of this study is to analyse how the concept of ‘women and children’ is represented bytwo humanitarian organisations; International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) andMédecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The analyses concludes that there is (still) an assumptionthat women have an inherent vulnerability and women are often described together with‘children’ as if they are one vulnerable group instead of two. This study suggests aproblematization of the concept since activities planned by humanitarian organisations mayhave a big impact on people’s lives when assuming one group to be more vulnerable thananother.

This study aims to explore how the Swedish Red Cross’s work for gender equality in light of Agenda 2030 is reflected in representations of beneficiaries in Instagram communication. It also aims to understand how representations of beneficiaries are produced and reproduced concerning gender, stereotypes, and power relations. The research questions that are used to reach the aim are ‘How is Agenda 2030 focusing on gender present in the representations of beneficiaries in the Swedish Red Cross’s communication on Instagram?’, and ‘How do representations of beneficiaries contribute to stereotyping, feminization, and de-masculinization of the MajorityWorld?’. Based on a qualitative interpretative approach and multimodal critical discourse analysis, visual and textual content in posts from the national Instagram account of the Swedish Red Cross have been collected and analyzed through the theoretical framework of representation theory and postcolonial theory. The findings show that the most prominent beneficiary groups represented in terms of gender are women and children, which aligns with stereotypical and colonial narratives that infantilize and feminize the Majority World. This study further shows that the commitment to the global goals of gender equality and the Swedish national identity as a gender equality promoter is insufficient to deconstruct colonial discourses in INGO communication.

Becoming business-like is a phenomenon that is gaining more and more attention in the non-profit sector. One aspect within this phenomenon is professionalization; which implies that there are an increased number of professional employees, higher demands on volunteers, and that there is a perception that experts should be in charge. This has influenced the governance of non-profit organizations to become more business-like through greater formalities, increased competence and education. At the same time, these organizations are expected to be driven primarily by volunteers, which limits the possibilities for formal control. The field of research has found that professionalization is a widespread phenomenon, but has not considered what happens to business-like organizational ideas when they travel within the organization. This study contributes to the field of research by increasing the understanding of how professionalization manifests itself in terms of management at different organizational levels, as well as how this affects the non-profit identity. Following an in-depth qualitative case study of the Swedish Red Cross, this study concludes that professionalization is primarily expressed in management through a strong focus on professional skills and increased administrative requirements, and that it appears to be an influential aspect of two different organizational identities. This is based on 13 interviews with people at three different organizational levels, seven participatory observations at the second-hand shop Kupan, as well as analysis of externally and internally produced documentation. By using translation theory, the study shows that professional ideas undergo editing and translation when they travel within the organization. Thus, the study's conclusions also indicate that professionalization decreases at lower levels. Nevertheless, the perception of two different organizational identities remains a consequence of decoupling; a strategy to meet the environment's expectations of being both a professional and non-profit organization. This creates a distance between the organizational levels and reduces the individuals sense of belonging. Furthermore, this study shows that further research is needed examining what happens to ideas about professionalization when they travel within organizations, to truly understand the phenomenon. / Att bli företagslik är ett fenomen som får allt mer uppmärksamhet inom den ideella sektorn. En aspekt av detta fenomen är professionalisering; vilket tidigare forskning menar innebär att andelen professionella anställda ökar, att det ställs högre krav på volontärer och att det finns en uppfattning om att experter ska vara ansvariga. Detta har influerat styrningen i ideella organisationer att bli mer företagslik genom högre formalitet, kompetens och utbildning. Samtidigt förväntas dessa organisationer primärt drivas av volontärer, vilket begränsar möjligheterna för formell styrning. Forskningsfältet har konstaterat att professionalisering är ett utbrett fenomen men har inte undersökt vad som händer med företagslika organisationsidéer när de sprids inom organisationen. Denna studie bidrar till forskningsfältet genom att öka förståelsen för hur professionalisering tar sig i uttryck i styrningen på olika organisatoriska nivåer, samt hur detta påverkar den ideella identiteten. Efter en ingående kvalitativ fallstudie av Svenska Röda Korset är studiens slutsatser att professionalisering främst uttrycks i styrningen genom ett stort fokus på professionell kompetens och ökade administrativa krav, samt att det verkar vara en influerande aspekt till två olika organisationsidentiteter. Detta baseras på 13 intervjuer med personer på tre olika organisatoriska nivåer, sju deltagande observationer på second hand-butiken Kupan, samt analys av externa och interna dokument. Genom att använda translationsteori visar studien att professionella idéer genomgår redigering och översättning när de sprids inom organisationen. Således indikerar studiens slutsatser även att professionaliseringen avtar på lägre nivåer. Trots detta kvarstår uppfattningen om två olika organisationsidentiteter som är en konsekvens av särkoppling; en strategi för att möta omgivningens förväntningar om att vara både en professionell och ideell organisation. Detta skapar en distans mellan de organisatoriska nivåerna och minskar individernas känsla av tillhörighet. Därmed visar denna studie att det behövs ytterligare forskning om vad som händer med idéer om professionalisering när de sprids inom organisationer, för att verkligen förstå fenomenet.

Social media is an important channel for charitable organisations to reach potential donors and volunteers by communicating who and what requires their aid. This thesis aims to explain how a charitable organization can use these channels to its advantage through creating more reactions from their readers in the form of likes, comments and shares. This subject is explored under the following main research question:  Which aspects of a charity’s communication in social media creates the most and the least amount of reactions from those who receive the communication?  The research question is answered using an abductive approach in a netnographic observation of posts and comments on the Swedish Red Cross Facebook-wall during the months of September 2012 and September 2016. Data from two months with four years in between was observed in order to create further understanding of how this phenomenon has changed over time. Additionally, an interview was conducted with two employees at the Swedish Red Cross to supplement the netnographic observation.  The results of the study indicate that four overarching themes were essential in determining the reaction a post receives: Drama, a connection to news and sharing values led to more reactions, whilst urging the readers to take action led to fewer reactions. The results also show that whilst the Swedish Red Cross’ use of Facebook has become more professional since 2012, the themes determining how many reactions a post receives remain the same. The results were analysed using the theories of compassion fatigue, clicktivism and intertextuality.  Lastly, this thesis offers a discussion about how progressing towards increasingly striking messages in social media may result in people caring less. And furthermore, how the underlying mechanisms affecting people’s choices on social media may have consequences for society as a whole. / Sociala medier är viktiga kanaler för välgörenhetsorganisationer att nå ut till potentiella givare och volontärer med budskap om vem och vad som behöver deras hjälp. Den här uppsatsen syftar till att ta reda på hur en välgörenhetsorganisation kan nyttja dessa kanaler till sin fördel genom att framkalla fler reaktioner från sina läsare i form av gilla-markeringar, kommentarer och delningar. För att ta reda på detta har en övergripande forskningsfråga utformats:  Vilka aspekter av en välgörenhetsorganisations kommunikation i sociala medier leder till den största respektive minsta mängden reaktioner från dem som mottar kommunikationen?  Frågan besvaras med hjälp av en abduktiv studie som baseras på en netnografisk observation av inlägg och kommentarer i Svenska Röda Korsets Facebook-flöde under september 2012 och september 2016. Material från två månader med fyra års mellanrum har observerats för att skapa förståelse för hur fenomenet har ändrats över tid. Den netnografiska observationen kompletteras med en intervju med två anställda på Svenska Röda Korset.  Det sammantagna resultatet delas in i fyra övergripande teman som enligt studien varit avgörande för hur mycket reaktioner ett inlägg får, där dramatik, nyhetskoppling och värderingar leder till fler reaktioner medan uppmaningar leder till färre. Resultatet visade även att trots att Svenska Röda Korsets användning av Facebook har blivit mer professionell sedan år 2012, så var de teman som avgjorde antalet reaktioner desamma. Resultatet analyseras med hjälp av teorierna compassion fatigue, clicktivism och intertextualitet.  Slutligen diskuterar uppsatsen hur en utveckling mot alltmer slående budskap i sociala medier kan leda till att människor bryr sig mindre. Samt hur de underliggande mekanismerna som styr människors val på sociala medier kan innebära konsekvenser för samhället i stort.