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Good Enough Guide to #humanitarian accountability in #emergencies now in #Burmese #Myanmar 13 languages total http://t.co/zjDiuExx 2nd FebruaryGoma Joint Emergency Training - A step in the right direction
Published on 1 July 2009
Gathering in IDP camps in Goma, a team of emergency response staff from CARE, Catholic Relief Services, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam and World Vision saw the opportunity in March to learn together in the context of an on-going emergency in Eastern DRC.
Richard Jacquot, Mercy Corps ECB Manager, one of the Joint Emergency Training facilitators, emphasizes the need for careful planning “We needed to work closely with our country office to prepare the camp communities for our field training sessions. The multi-agency nature of the training added another layer of complexity, plus we had to plan for a back-up scenario in case fighting broke out in Goma.”
Participant evaluations placed the Good Enough Guide and ECB Simulation Tool as two of the five most useful parts of the training. Challenging the participants to pull together and apply a lot of new material, one simulation participant said, “I liked the team unity that emerged; we learnt a lot from trying to deal with the position of the government and improve the poor communication between the main office and the field.”
Yet Richard underlines the reality that simulations for humanitarian workers and operations remain under-used. He asks “Why wait for the real thing to find out what does not work and correct it?" The Goma facilitation team used their simulations experience to foster a supportive environment that harnessed participants’ energy and commitment to learning from the exercise.
The Mercy Corps team is coordinating another five-day training in South Asia in October where their regional emergency team will have the opportunity to share different perspectives to common problems, such as early recovery and economic development in emergencies, and discuss initiatives that could allow them to better meet the beneficiaries’ needs when responding to future emergencies in the region.
This ECB Joint Emergency Training in Goma demonstrated that valuable knowledge and resources can be maximized when an inter-agency team decide together to take a critical step towards building staff capacity in this complex region.
Contact us to find out more about this and other Joint Emergency Training initiatives.
With special thanks to Richard Jacquot and Erynn Carter at Mercy Corps for their support with this initiative.
Photo: Caroline Irby/ Oxfam GB, 2009
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