Since we established our Disaster Response Support Service in Haiti, 734 aid workers have now been trained in humanitarian, technical and related disciplines. The vast majority of participants are Haitian nationals, helping the country respond, resource and rebuild.
Magdala Jean Baptiste is a Haitian teacher currently working for Save the Children as an Education Coordinator. Magdala’s team is based in Jacamel – close to the epicentre of the quake - where an estimated 60 percent of buildings and infrastructure were severely damaged or destroyed. Her work involves liaising closely with educational representatives, children and communities on areas such as reopening schools and reinstating classes, safeguarding children and distributing materials.
Magdala has been passing on what she learnt, ensuring that knowledge of good hygiene practice is widely disseminated in camps and local communities: “I’ve replicated what I learnt on the RedR training course to our community mobilisation teams who then in turn have run hygiene education in schools; for the school heads, teachers, students and parental committees. In total we have educated 1,228 people who will each teach 30 people in their community about the importance of good hygiene practices to help prevent disease outbreaks. That will make 36,840 Haitians who have been reached on the basis of this one important training.
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RedR has a training team in in Port-au-Prince who are delivering training to local Haitian staff employed by international NGOs, such as Save the Children, Tearfund, GOAL and many others. The training is designed to develop core skills in key areas such as logistics, water, sanitation, hygiene and security. To date, we have booked over 200 hours of course work and have delivered training to over 300 local staff from 12 different organizations. Requests for training come in daily and we are working hard to meet that demand so that our vital capacity building work can continue.
The training is based on our Disaster Response Support Service. Our trainers have been delivering on-the-job coaching and short training courses to aid workers in essential disciplines during the early phases of the response so that aid workers are not distracted from their work. As the focus of efforts moves towards recovery and reconstruction, RedR will respond with longer and typically classroom-based courses to meet changing training needs.
Thanks to our donors, our programme is already making a real difference in improving the effectiveness of aid agencies working to rebuild peoples’ lives in Haiti.
RedR sent a team to Haiti to assess what training and support would be needed as the international community works with Haitians to provide relief to people affected by the disaster.
The team’s work has shown that relief workers on the ground need more training in logistics - such as effective distribution and warehousing, as well as courses on how to manage people and projects in emergency situations. There is also a need for training and support in technical areas like camp management, site planning and structural assessment. And the team anticipate that training in water and sanitation will be needed once more permanent sites are planned.
Thanks to people like you, RedR was able to begin on-the-job training at the end of February with content delivered as short, open courses of one to two days duration.
Thank you so much for your support. Watch this space for further updates.
