Defender
Celebrating a longstanding partnership with the British Red Cross and IFRC.
About our partnership
2024 marked 70 years of partnership between Defender, the British Red Cross and IFRC, making it one of the longest charity partnerships in the world.
The relationship began with the loan of a Series 1 Land Rover to act as a mobile dispensary in the Dubai desert, in 1954. Since then, the partnership has helped a staggering 2 million people to prepare for, respond to and recover from crisis in more than 50 countries.
The current focus of the partnership is to support communities to prepare for, respond to and recover from humanitarian crises. With communities facing disasters on top of threats such as food insecurity, conflict and climate change, this work has never been more important.
Defender became a member of our Disaster Relief Alliance in 2019. Their investment helps the British Red Cross support people when disaster strikes across the world.
Celebrating 70 years of partnership
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of our partnership, we transformed a Defender 110 into an incredible mobile museum, which launched at London South Bank’s Observation Point on 19th and 20th September 2024.
Our impact so far
Together, we have reached almost 2 million people in over 50 countries through humanitarian projects.
Our global partnership has allowed us to:
- support families and communities recovering from emergencies, in particular helping to build resilience within the community
- help the Nepal Red Cross Society establish a disaster awareness programme and protection schemes to the most vulnerable
- facilitate the testing of Defenders as part of ongoing emergency response activities and long-term fleet solutions with IFRC teams.
In North Wales a specially adapted Defender 130 emergency response vehicle helps the British RedCross volunteers to support communities disrupted by extreme weather. It has been customised withadvanced communications and power technology, storage and a water heater, allowing the BritishRed Cross staff and volunteers crew to provide hot drinks to people caught up in crises.
Did you know?
Defender first supported the British Red Cross 70 years ago with the donation of a specially adapted Defender that was used as a medical dispensary in the deserts of Dubai.
Since then, Defender has supplied vehicles to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The capabilities of the Defender continue to enable teams to deliver life-changing support to people in emergencies across all types of terrain.
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