Emergency response drill for Asia-Pacific
Updated
Across the Asia Pacific, internal conflicts and natural disasters continue to exact a heavy toll. Responding to such emergencies is unpredictable work, filled with moral and practical hazards. In Thailand, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has been running a major training drill on effective response. Emergency officials from nearly 20 Asia-Pacific countries took part.
Presenter: Jay Lamey
Speakers: Mike Dell'Amico, Coordinator of the UNHCR's eCentre; Mohamed Naeem, UNHCR Afghanistan; workshop instructor
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LAMEY: This refugee has just escaped from a violent civil conflict in his native country of 'Mardon'. But he's not being welcomed by the local authorities here. Instead, a group of armed soldiers are threatening to push him and his family back over the border, from where we can hear the sound of gunfire.
The only hope for the man and his family is a small group of aid workers nearby, who may be able to negotiate a solution. As it happens, the whole scene is a setup - a "Humanitarian Response Workshop", being held by the "e-Centre" - a Japan-based unit of the UN High Commission for Refugees.
The day-long simulation was held at a Thai Army camp, with scores of locals playing the part of refugees caught up in an international crisis. The overall coordinator Mike Dell'Amico explained that he drill attracted humanitarian workers from 18 Asia-Pacific countries, including two Burmese government officials involved in the country's response to Cyclone Nargis.
DELLAMICO: They fit right in, and take part in all the training, they've been interested in talking about all the different subjects from the technical sectors to subjects like human rights and humanitarian law. So it's quite an interesting mix of participants, and a great opportunity to raise awareness of these subjects with a pretty diverse audience.
LAMEY: This group is practicing how to respond to a serious car accident, with victims covered in fake blood. The organisers have created highly realistic scenarios to test how people might react in genuine emergencies. After each session, instructors hold a debrief, analysing the groups' performance.
INSRUCTOR: If they are a fist aid person then get them on to the casualties, but someone like Justin has to sit back and coordinate everything. He didn't do the first aid, call the radio, call the traffic.
LAMEY: Coordinator, Mike Dell'Amico says the more real the scenarios, the better the UN can gauge how effective a response they'd receive in the field.
DELLAMICO: Sometimes just a five minute experience, even a simulated one like this, can really make the light bulb go on over your head and you say, "yeah, now I see it."
LAMEY: And so what skills have you been teaching these participants before today?
DELLAMICO: We learnt about assessments, when you go an assessment what should you be looking for, and what are ways that assessments often fail? We talked about safety and security, we talked about what you do when you're stopped at a checkpoint for example, about how to behave to get you through safely and quickly. We spent quite a bit of time on the subject of negotiation, and in the broad sense we talked about all the interpersonal skills that are effective in dealing with a situation. You know, it's not just what you say but it's the tone you use, and very often it's the body language you use to convey a message. Planning is essential , wherever you go, coordination is essential wherever you go, we have to work with the people to your right and left, and at the end of the day, we want people to understand and sympathise a little bit the with the situation of the people they are helping.
LAMEY: This scenario involves a food distribution point, where an agitated mob has surrounded the arriving humanitarian workers, demanding to be fed. Someone who can relate to this is Mohamed Naeem, a UNHCR staff member from Afghanistan. Last year he worked on the emergency resettlement of 50,000 Afghan refuges who'd been deported from Iran... a tense and difficult six week process:
AHMED: Thousands of people, males, females, children, they were deported and there was a lack of food, a lack of shelter, a lack of water, shelter. It was the same situation I experienced in today's exercise, the same people, emotional people, angry people, hungry people, thirsty. Certainly in these kind of areas it's very difficult to handle the situation, so I got a lot of practical lessons from this exercise, that if you get stuck, and then what are the techniques you use in this kind of situation for your own security and also for the benefit of the people.
LAMEY: And, as the planners of these exercises have tried to emphasise, good preparation and quick thinking can save lives. And the next time these people are in a situation like this, it may not be a drill.
