Training for Humanity

Military Training?

2010-02-06T17:09:00.000-05:00

Red Cross volunteers to undergo military training

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sat, 02/06/2010 6:11 PM | National

The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) will select 60 volunteers for a rigorous training under tutelage of the Special Force instructors.

PMI chief Jusuf Kalla said the special training would help prepare the volunteers for humanitarian missions in difficult terrains.

“We have received offers from the Mobile Brigade, the Special Force and the Marines,” Kalla told Antara on his way to Yogyakarta on Saturday.

The special physical training will be given to PMI volunteers who live in Surabaya and Jakarta. “It’s only a small team, not all the volunteers will undergo training,” Kalla said.

The volunteers, he added, would be fielded only for disaster mitigation works that require high-level skill due to the demanding challenges they would face. Kalla said the volunteers would be armed with the best equipment.

“We are still negotiating the cooperation offer, technicalities and the place where the training will be held,” said Kalla.

Newspaper Story

2010-01-22T17:50:00.001-05:00

2 IRSC students in Haiti helping with relief, language barrier

By Tyler Treadway (www.tcpalm.com)
Posted January 22, 2010 at 4:10 p.m.

FORT PIERCE — Two Indian River State College students trained in the school’s emergency management program and fluent in Haitian patois are working with earthquake relief agencies in Port-au-Prince.

Cleauberdy Brenovil, 27, of Jensen Beach, and Jean Estiva Charles, 43, of Fort Pierce, left for Haiti on Wednesday under the auspices of the Eagles Wings Foundation, a West Palm Beach-based disaster relief group that works closely with the Red Cross and other organizations.

Brenovil and Charles, both enrolled in the IRSC bachelor’s degree program in public safety administration, are helping distribute food and water at a logistics center in Port-au-Prince and acting as translators at meetings with multi-nationals to plan and coordinate operations by government agencies, the United Nations and nonprofit aid organizations.

Paul Forage, an IRSC associate professor who coordinates the college’s emergency management program, said Brenovil and Charles are expected to be in Haiti between two weeks and 30 days.

Forage said communication with Brenovil and Charles is “spotty” despite a suitcase-size satellite communications unit they have that was bought with a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.

“I talked to (Charles on Friday),” Forage said, “and he said the situation on the ground is really tough. There’s a huge need to deliver food and water to the places where people really need it. They get 2 or 3 tons of supplies to a distribution center, and it runs out really quickly because the need is so great.”

Forage said supplies are arriving at the Port-au-Prince airport, “but there are log jams that keep it from getting out to the people. It’s always difficult to coordinate distribution in the first week after a disaster, even one here in the (United States). That’s part of the job (Brenovil and Charles) are working on, and it’s something their training has prepared them for.”

Brenovil and Charles participated in the college’s Summer Institute for Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Assistance, a two-week program in Macedonia with scenario-based training in earthquake response that tests students’ abilities to cope with limited resources, language barriers and civil military relations.

What the training can’t prepare them for, Forage added, “is the emotional reaction to the suffering they’re witnessing; nothing can prepare you for that.”

Forage said both Brenovil and Charles have family in Haiti, and “they’ve both lost a few relatives.”

Disaster Resources

2010-01-21T11:37:00.003-05:00

Wired has this interesting article on tech and disaster response, especially the use of mapping tools for all you geography majors:

Disaster Relief 2.0

"During a large-scale humanitarian crisis, information is key. Coordination among relief agencies is essential, so that efforts are not duplicated and resources go where they are most needed."

"With collaborative tools, disaster-response teams and relief workers can identify risk zones and emerging threats more rapidly. Courtesy of a tech community “SitRep” (situational report) created and shared by Luke Beckman of the nonprofit group InSTEDD, we have some insight into how humanitarian organizations, aid groups and the military can tap information to help in the relief effort."

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/disaster-relief-20-haitis-virtual-surge/

inSTEDD: "Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters" See http://www.instedd.org/

http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Main_Page

Consortium Students deploy to Port au Prince, Haiti

2010-01-18T21:44:00.004-05:00

Two Consortium students arrived today in Port au Prince Haiti to help local NGO assist earthquake victims.

Jean Charles Estiva and Cleauberdy Brenovil, both Emergency Management majors at Indian River State College, will assist the command staff of this relief agency based in West Palm Beach operate a POD or point of distribution of food and aid supplies.

Berdy and Jean Charles flew in with a F4W BGAN-PSI portable satellite telephone system from the IRSC Emergency Management Program.

Many of you will remember "Berdy" and Jean Charles as seasoned veterans of CHSE humanitarian operations in Atlantica - both in Florida and Macedonia.

2nd Conference Concludes

2010-01-18T21:39:00.003-05:00

2nd Humanitarian Studies Conference Concludes

Guest Speakers included:

Wiley Thompson from USMA West Point
Peter Reynolds from Kabul, Afghanistan
David Smith, from USIP Washington, D.C.
Catherine Johnston from her offices at DAI in Washington
Damjan Zdravev from his home in Skopje. Macedonia

More details to follow....

Korean Training Program

2010-01-05T10:15:00.003-05:00

Training of Development Consultants Planned
Korea Times 01-05-2010 15:14

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Korea will train aspiring development consultants and aid workers who are interested in providing overseas development aid in order to meet the rising demand for relief workers.

The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) announced Tuesday that it will introduce three courses that are aimed at providing interested candidates with hands-on, professional training on development assistance in March.

As Korea has begun to establish international aid programs, field aid workers and regional experts agree that Korea needs more trained people who can give advice on country-specific relief programs.

In response to the mounting request for government support, KOICA is scheduled to open a training center to focus on fixing the problem.

The center will offer three development assistance courses: a general course for ordinary citizens, a professional program for aspiring development consultants and a special educational program.

Read full text at http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/01/116_58456.html

MSF on Recent Aid Manipulation

2010-01-05T10:02:00.002-05:00

Blocking of aid worsened 2009 humanitarian crises, group says

Mark Tran
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 December 2009 16.23 GMT

Trapped civilians in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Sudan cut off from aid deliberately, says Médecins sans Frontières.

The withholding of government aid to trapped civilians in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Sudan contributed to the worst humanitarian emergencies of 2009, a medical group said today.

Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) also pointed to a fall in funding for the treatment of diseases such as sleeping sickness and HIV/Aids as part of its annual list of worst humanitarian crises for the past year.

"There is no question that civilians are increasingly victimised in conflicts and further cut off from lifesaving assistance, often deliberately," said Christophe Fournier, the MSF international council president. "In places like Sri Lanka and Yemen, where armed conflicts raged in 2009, aid groups were either blocked from accessing those in need or forced out because they too came under fire. This unacceptable dynamic is becoming the norm."

In Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of civilians were trapped with no aid and limited medical care as government forces battled Tamil Tiger rebels in the spring with aid organisations banned from entering the conflict zone. In some conflicts, hospitals themselves came under fire. In what MSF described as a glaring case of abuse of humanitarian action for military gain, civilians who gathered with their children at MSF vaccination sites in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) came under attack by government forces.

MSF said its teams were vaccinating thousands of children against measles at seven sites in territory controlled by Hutu militias when the Congolese army opened fire in October, despite security guarantees from all sides. Thousands were forced to flee, and MSF had to evacuate its teams to the regional capital, Goma.

"We feel we were used as bait," said Luis Encinas, head of MSF programmes in Central Africa. "The attack was an unacceptable abuse of humanitarian action to fulfill military objectives." The MSF vaccination campaign continued in other areas and reached a total of 165,000 children.

Elsewhere in Africa, medical humanitarian emergencies persisted throughout 2009 in several parts of Sudan. Besides the crisis in Darfur, people in southern Sudan faced a bleak situation marked by escalating violence, disease, and little or no access to health care. Violent clashes in Jonglei, Upper Nile, Warrap, and Lakes State throughout the year left hundreds dead and thousands displaced. Sporadic attacks on villages by the notorious Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), near the Congolese border and also in the DRC itself, caused thousands of Sudanese people to flee their homes and Congolese refugees to cross the border and seek refuge in Western Equatoria state, Sudan.

In Pakistan, where tens of thousands fled a government offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley, hospitals were struck by mortar fire and two MSF workers were killed forcing the group to suspend its operations.

Planning Meeting 1

2009-12-16T21:14:00.003-05:00

Met today with Mike Stonesifer and Brenda Rante to discuss some preliminary details of ATLANTIC HOPE. Some specific points discussed:

1. ATLANTIC HOPE in March and SVETLINA in May are both complex events with substantial supporting documentation that both faculty and student-participants should master as much as possible prior to attending.

2. All instructors should ensure that their materials have been cross-checked and updated with the same materials student-participants are reading! At a minimum this means, for example, that instructor powerpoints are coordinated with the "Blue Book" which is a "digest" of mission-critical information. Extra copies of the 2009 Blue Book are available. The Blue Book will be updated for February 2010 so there is some time to improve on its contents as well.

3. All major events and as many minor events as possible will be scripted in Controller-Evaluator Handbooks as prescribed by HSEEP standards. Both ATLANTIC HOPE and SVETLINA are Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) compliant events as a minimum standard that we can add to but not subtract from. See https://hseep.dhs.gov

4. The role of "wounded" role-players was discussed. It was agreed that they should not only be knowledgeable about their wounds and how they got them - MOI or mechanism of injury - but also how these wounds should be treated. Following their "performance" role-players should be debriefed or given a questionnaire to fill out to provide an additional source of rescuer evaluation. The same protocol can be used for non-medical role-playing, i.e. immediate debrief of role-players following an event.

The next planning meeting will be held early in January when IRSC re-opens following the holiday break.

Hotels for January Conference

2009-12-14T15:14:00.005-05:00

My recommended hotel (b/c it's brand new) for the January Humanitarian Conference is:

Fairfield Inn and Suites
6502 Metal Drive
Fort Pierce, Florida 34945
772-462-2900

Ask the Fairfield for the "IRSC rate" of $69/night

Other hotels nearby include:

Holiday Inn Express
7151 Okeechobee Road
Fort Pierce, Florida 34945
772-464-5000

Best Western
6485 Metal Drive
Fort Pierce, Florida 34945
772-409-1740

Comfort Suites
6505 Metal Drive
Fort Pierce, Florida 34945
772-409-1420

Webcasting

2009-12-14T09:06:00.003-05:00

CHSE related items for today:

Looking at free webcasting potential for our conference in January. www.ustream.tv is one option but seems to include annoying pop-up ads though the interface appears easy enough. This may also have a potential for Virtual Atlantica participation in March. The test site is http://www.ustream.tv/channel/emergency-management
Will also identify hotels bargains in local area for conference participants
I'm happy to report that our Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence application has cleared its first hurdle and is awaiting final approval from the State Department. Let's keep our fingers crossed. Many thanks to Mark and Wiley for helping make this happen.

2010 Welcome

2009-12-13T18:05:00.001-05:00

Consortium Events for 2010

Humanitarian Conference (Fort Pierce, Florida, January 15 -17, 2010)
FTX Atlantic Hope (Fort Pierce, Florida, March 4-7, 2010)
Summer Institute in Macedonia (May 17 - June 1, 2010)

Other Activities (reported here on this blog)

Revision of the "Blue Book" Field Guide for participants and faculty
Update reading lists for participants and faculty
Development of Virtual Atlantica to promote and support remote participants and faculty

Be sure to visit our other sites at: