Context/background of the project Europe has a number of rescue teams which provide assistance to the general public in cases of emergencies. These rescue organisations work on a voluntary basis and provide training to their volunteers to equip them with the necessary knowledge of how to act in a particular situation. Currently, the working methods that are used by our volunteers during these rescue operations is not harmonised. Therefore volunteers coming from one organisation may handle a emergency situation differently from the volunteers of another European rescue organisation. This creates problems when our organisations would need to mobilise their volunteers in order to meet the increasing demands for assistance. Objectives of the project Following the above-mentioned problem, six organisations have come up with the idea of creating what is being referred to as the Rescue Operations Manual which will contain one common working method that should be adopted for every discipline that will be targeted in this project. In fact, it can be stated that the main objective of this project is to bring together these six participant organisations in order to devise this Rescue Operations Manual that will eventually be taken up by all these organisations to harmonise the manner by which volunteers act when they are involved in rescue missions. By virtue of this Manual, each participating organisation will alter and amend its training structures in order to make it fit the instructions that will be included in the Manual. Ultimately, by adopting one common system of how volunteers should tackle a situation, the participating organisations would be in a position to mobilise their volunteers according to the needs. Number and profile of participants The participants for this project include the applicant organisation (EFRU) together with six partners from Italy, Portugal, Greece, UK and Cyprus. Every organisation will appoint a Project Coordinator that will be responsible for the overall management of the project. Also, aside from the latter persons, each organisation will appoint 2 Key Persons and a Manager. The 2 Key Persons will be experts in the disciplines that will be tackled. Moreover, the Managers will be responsible for the development of the Rescue Operations Manual. More specifically, each Manager will be responsible for a particular discipline. It is safe to state that the 2 Key Persons and the Managers will be working closely together in order to achieve the goal of this project. Methodology and Description of activities: 1) 5 Transnational Meetings: During these meetings the Key Persons and the Managers will have time to discuss the disciplines that will be targeted by this project. In some (but not all) of the meetings the Project Coordinators will be involved. Also for the last transnational meeting only the Managers will be involved. 2) 2 Simulation activities: The first simulation will be carried out after the first transnational meeting and its scope will be to bring together volunteers from all over Europe to assign to them different situations whereby they would have to provide assistance as happens in real life. Their behaviour and interaction will be noted and this will be used to help the Managers devise the best possible working methods to be included in the Manual. On the other hand,the second simulation will be held after the last meeting and exactly before the Conference in order to test the results of this project. 3) A Conference: This will be held at the very end of the project to publish this Manual and give a copy to all those attending and this activity will also serve a means to make public the results of this project. In fact the media will also be invited to attend this Conference. Results The result of this project will be the Rescue Operations Manual and consequently the volunteers that will participate in the training courses that are based on the instructions of the Manual will be given a certificate to certify that they are qualified to act in line with the working methods of the Manual. The volunteers will acquire new skills because the working methods that will be devised in the Manual will focus on safety and practicality. Therefore volunteers will be more equipped to deal with the emergency situations when they are involved in rescue missions. Impact The impact of this project will be felt by the participating organisations, the volunteers and society in general. We believe that the extended impact of this project will be felt consequent to this project when rescue organisations will take the appropriate action to amend their training structures in order to make them fit the instructions provided in the Manual. The volunteers will then start to operate on the basis of these instructions and this will provide the same organisations with the possibility of mobilising their volunteers from one country to another.
Context / background: Europe has a number of rescue teams which provide assistance to the general public in cases of emergencies. These rescue organisations work on a voluntary basis and provide training to their volunteers to equip them with the necessary knowledge of how to act in a particular situation. Before our project, the working methods that used by volunteers during these rescue operations was not harmonised. Therefore volunteers from one organisation handle an emergency situation differently from volunteers of another European rescue organisation. This creates problems when multiple organisations need to mobilise their volunteers in order to meet the increasing demands for assistance in an emergency. Objectives: Following the above-mentioned problem, six organisations came up with the idea of creating a Rescue Operations Manual containing best practices and common working methods to be adopted for a number of rescue disciplines that were targeted in this project. The six participant organisations will eventually adopt this rescue manual as a common training document, altering their training curriculum to harmonise the manner by which volunteers act when they are involved in rescue missions. This facilitates the deployment of multiple rescue teams working together, making their response safer and more efficient. Number and profile of participants: The participants for this project include the applicant and lead organisation (EFRU) together with five partners from Italy, Portugal, Greece, UK and Cyprus. Every organisation appointed a Project Coordinator, 2 Key Persons and a Manager. All have a significant background in within the organisations as volunteers and knowledgeable about rescue response. The 2 key persons are experts in the rescue disciplines tackled by the project. The Managers were responsible for the development of the Rescue Operations Manual, working closely with the key persons. Methodology and Description of activities: The project was conducted through discussions in transnational meetings, while rescue simulations were used to gather data required for the development of the rescue manual and also to validate the results of the project. A conference served as a dissemination activity of the project results. 1) 5 Transnational Meetings: During these meetings the key persons and the managers discussed the rescue disciplines targeted by this project, more specifically the content to be included in the rescue manual, including best practices and common working methods identified observed during the rescue simulations. The transnational meetings also served for planning of activities and also for project coordination, making sure it was running smoothly. 2) 2 Simulation activities: The first simulation was carried out after the first transnational meeting and its scope was to bring together rescue volunteers from the participant organisations and assign them to multinational teams responsible to perform different realistic rescue tasks. Their behaviour and interaction was noted and this was used to help the Managers devise the best possible working methods to be included in the Manual. On the other hand, the second simulation was held after the last meeting and exactly before the Conference in order to test the results of this project. 3) A Conference: This was held at the very end of the project to publish the rescue manual and make public the results of this project. A number of keynote speeches related to volunteering in rescue were also delivered during the conference. The media was invited to attend this conference to extend the awareness to the community. Results and impact: The result of this project culminated in the Rescue Operations Manual which was finished to high standards and distributed during the conference. The rescue volunteers that participated in the rescue simulations benefited from the experience of working alongside each other in mixed teams and had many learning opportunities valuable for when they might be called to assist in major emergencies. The participant organisations are now able to improve their training curriculum to make it more in line with the common working methods in the rescue manual, to harmonize the training of their current and future volunteers. Other organisations that attended the conference also had the opportunity to receive the rescue manual and to network with other organisations with a view to cooperate together in the future. Longer term benefits: Harmonisation of training and networking of rescue organisations will ensure that more rescue volunteers will be able to work safer and better-coordinated when working alongside one another in the event of major emergencies thus providing a more efficient service to the community in the time of most need.