RedR Australia’s Training Programmes

RedR Australia is proud to have been an active player in the international response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 2004. Given RedR Australia’s dual mandate to train and deploy competent technical staff, RedR Australia was able to very quickly deploy more than 15 staff to our various standby partners such as the World Food Programme, United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and UN Joint Logistics Centre. Along with the deployments, the demands for RedR Australia training increased several-fold. RedR’s Australia register has individuals from a range of skill sets including engineering, public health, water and sanitation, logistics, and social work/protection.

RedR Australia’s training mandate focuses on Australia, East Asia, and the Pacific regions, offering core training programmes on Humanitarian Action, Personal Security and Communications, Logistics, and Field Management as well as tailored courses on technical sectors such as Needs Assessment, Protection, and Disaster Preparedness. The changes to the humanitarian field in the last 5 years have resulted in a growing demand for professional and trained personnel who are able to deploy on short notice, and the increasing role of the military in humanitarian actions has seen an emphasis on not only training in coordination and cooperation, but a true attempt to bridge the gap in the civil-military relations in humanitarian actions. It must be pointed out as an observation that currently the effort for civil-military training is more initiated from the humanitarian actors’ side than the military side.
As was evident in the Tsunami response, Civil-Military engagement can be a key element of success. To enhance the learning for students on the Personal Security and Communications Course, RedR Australia receives support and works with the Australian Defence Force to provide instruction and understanding of civil-military co-ordination as well as to enhance understanding for participants on working in insecure environments.

From the feedback RedR Australia received from its participants who completed the training and then were deployed, most found the training a valuable prerequisite to deployment, as it better prepares them for the non-technical aspects of working in the humanitarian environment and allows for planning for re-integration once they return from a mission. RedR Australia sees the training as an integral part of any deployment to ensure maximization of the deployees’ skills while they are in field, and to reduce the “orientation” time needed upon arriving in the field in an emergency situation.

As part of our engagement in the region, RedR Australia also works with international and national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies to support their training of humanitarian workers; organizations such as the Center of Excellence in Disaster Management & Humanitarian Assistance (Hawaii, USA), the UNHCR eCentre1, and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (Bangkok, Thailand). These partnerships ensure benchmarking for training curriculum and updates of regional topics and relevant developments to pass on to the course participants. Training courses are listed on the RedR website, including application forms and contact details. For more information, interested prospective participants can also email training@redr.org.au.

RedR Australia advocates for training to be seen as an integral aspect of agencies’ commitment to staff development, and sees training as an ongoing need for both individuals and organizations to ensure continued accountability and delivery of effective humanitarian assistance.

Endnotes
1) UNHCR established the Regional Centre for Emergency Training in International Humanitarian Response, or the eCentre, in 2000, “to improve emergency preparedness and response in the Asia-Pacific region through Training Services, providing knowledge resources and networking in the specialized field of management of humanitarian emergencies involving population displacement. It aims to strengthen the capacity of a regional network to prepare for and respond to such emergencies. The network consists of humanitarian and other institutions in the Asia-Pacific region. Training takes place in Japan, at various other locations throughout the region and through distance learning and via the internet… the eCentre does not have a strictly physical location but is rather a network of resource persons and institutions that provide emergency training through the Asia-Pacific region. The eCentre makes maximum uses of electronic means to allow communication within this network, avoiding the need for a fulltime, centralized structure” (UNHCR eCentre Website, retrieved November 2005 from http://www.the-ecentre.net/about/index.cfm).